By royal appointment
HRH Prince Charles visited Marine Harvest’s Kinlochleven site today to learn more about the company’s cleanerfish initiative.
According to the Oban Times, the Prince was given a tour of the site by MH Scotland’s business support manager Steve Bracken, head veterinarian David Cockerill and cleaner fish manager Ronnie Hawkins.
The site was first stocked with wrasse in 2012, and has not required chemical treatments for a number of years. In 2015 it was the first salmon site in the UK to achieve Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certification.
The paper reports that the Prince – who has offered mixed opinions about the aquaculture industry over the years – then went to an International Sustainability Unit meeting on how to improve the environmental performance of Scottish salmon farms.
Following the visit, farm manager Andy Martin said: “It was a great honour to meet The Prince of Wales who was very interested in hearing more about our work with wrasse. It was great to be the first salmon farm in the UK to be ASC approved and we were really pleased The Prince of Wales came to visit to find out more about what we have achieved here.”
Ronnie Hawkins added: "He was very excited about it, like me and all of my colleagues, how this could make a big difference to the way we work and the whole process of salmon farming becomes much easier. I was impressed with his engagement with the whole process.
"We have used wrasse since 2012 with 100 per cent success. Today we have 12 farms stocked with cleaner fish and next year this will rise to 22."
