Fish health experts’ union calls for 5% mortality limit on salmon farms
Tekna president claims warnings by members have been ignored
A Norwegian trade union representing natural scientists and technologists, including fish health professionals, has demanded that the country’s salmon farming industry must be given a requirement of a maximum of 5% mortality within five years.
Tekna, which has 105,000 members, has also called for mortality to be factored into the “traffic light” system which determines which fish farmers are allowed to increase production and which must reduce it, based on the estimated harm done to wild salmon from sea lice. Tekna wants biomass reductions imposed on farmers with too high a mortality rate, while those with a low mortality rate are rewarded with the possibility of increased production.
The union’s demands were contained in a press release that was timed to coincide with this morning’s release of Norway’s Fish Health Report 2023, which looks at the causes of the record high total of 62.8 million (16.7%) farmed salmon deaths in the seawater stage last year.
For a long time fish health personnel have shouted warnings about poorer life and health for the fish, but neither the industry itself nor the political authorities have taken effective measures
Tekna president Elisabet Haugsbø
“For a long time fish health personnel along the coast have shouted warnings about poorer life and health for the fish, but neither the industry itself nor the political authorities have taken effective measures to ensure that the fish can live a better life, and actually reduce mortality,” said Tekna president Elisabet Haugsbø.
High workload
Tekna is the largest trade union for graduate-level natural scientists and technologists, and many of its members are fish health biologists.
The union has carried out a survey among members who work as fish health biologists and fish veterinarians, in order to map how they feel at work and to what extent their professional advice and assessments about fish health and welfare are listened to by fish farmers. The results show that the fish health biologists experience a very high workload and challenging professional dilemmas as part of their daily work.
Nine out of ten have experienced burnout or physical problems at work. Six out of ten have considered quitting due to high workload.
One in four is worried about losing an assignment by going against the client’s beliefs about the need for delousing.
“These results make us seriously concerned about the recruitment to an important occupational group for which there will only be an even greater need in the future,” said Haugsbø.
