Farmed salmon escape during delousing

Roy-Arne Eilertsen, the managing director of Gildeskål Research Station, told Kyst.no that a sudden and brief period of strong wind caused two of the mooring lines on the treatment vessel to snap, causing the boat to drift away from the fish farm.

- The hose that pumped the fish back into the cage ended up outside the cage, and before the crew could stop the pump, about 100 salmon were released into the sea outside the cage and net, Eilertsen explained.

The incident occurred while the vessel «Ro Fortune» was treating fish at the «Midt Femris» location.

- Both the crew on the boat and our own staff did a very good job when this incident first occurred, which in all likelihood helped to limit the outcome, he said.

Eilertsen said that the fish being treated weighed about 3 kg and were part of an experiment at Gifas. He emphasized that the fish had not received any treatments that would make them unfit for consumption.

- We don't take incidents like this lightly. At the time of the incident, there were 1.34 million fish at the location, according to Eilertsen.

- Our people had previously assessed the weather forecast and were well on their way to completing the treatment of the cage in question before the strong wind was forecast. Unfortunately, there was a sudden squall that lasted only a few minutes just before they were finished with the cage, which resulted in this outcome.

- Incidents like this are something we work continuously to avoid and are by no means an incident that we at Gifas take lightly, Eilertsen concluded.