Grieg has introduced more non-medicinal lice treatments in Shetland.

Grieg and Marine Harvest report escapes

Grieg Seafood Shetland lost a total of 1,446 salmon in two escapes last year, the company has revealed.

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Both the losses – 829 fish in May and 617 in December – were the result of a faulty hired wellboat.

Marine Harvest Scotland also had an escape involving a wellboat, losing 50 fish in November. Wellboat procedure has now been revised.

The figures were contained in a sustainability report by the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI), which both companies are members of. Grieg also included details of the escapes in its own sustainability report.

Committed to transparency

Members of the GSI are committed to sustainability, cooperation – companies working together to solve the industry’s problems more quickly and efficiently – and, significantly, transparency.

In its own report, Grieg said: “We strive to make sure that employees attend courses on escaping once every two years, at minimum. New employees also receive risk and procedural training with Operational Managers within their first week, and do not carry out work operations alone until they acquire necessary expertise.

“Our continuous efforts to prevent escapes have yielded positive results and falling escape figures. Nevertheless, we unfortunately registered three events of escape in 2016. One in Finnmark, two in Shetland, see Chart 7. All the three events of escape occurred due to routine failure at hired wellboats. It should not happen, hence the episodes underwent evaluation, and procedures have been tightened.”

In a challenging year for salmon production in Scotland, Grieg reported an increase in fish mortality to 17.03 per cent. This compares to 12.39 per cent in 2015, 11.60 per cent in 2014 and 9.80 per cent in 2013.

Marine Harvest also experienced increased losses, up to 11.43 per cent last year compared to 10.36 per cent in 2015 but still better than the 14.4 per cent it suffered in 2014.

Treatments

Grieg Shetland’s antibiotic use, calculated as the number of treatments over the entire production cycle, was 0.03 per cent in 2016, having used none in the previous three years.

Marine Harvest’s figure for 2016 was 0.17 per cent, up slightly on the 0.12 per cent figure of the year before but well down on the figures of 0.27 per cent for 2014 and 0.45 per cent for 2013.

The GSI report warns: “Due to differences in regional treatment regulations and practices, inter-regional comparisons of antibiotic use should be avoided. The Sustainability Report can however be used to track company progress over time.”

Sea lice numbers remained a problem for both companies in 2016. Grieg’s numbers were above the Scottish Government’s limit all year, with the count peaking at 3.44 female adult lice per fish in December.

Marine Harvest’s worst month was January at 4.03. It managed to get just below the limit in October (0.99) and December (0.97).

Sea lice skirts

Both firms have invested in additional non-medicinal lice control methods. Last year Grieg added thermal treatments (Thermolicer/Optilicer) to its armoury of sea lice skirts and cleaner fish. Marine Harvest added thermal treatments and deep lights / deep feeding and freshwater treatments to the flushers (i.e. Hydrolicer, Flatsetsund Flusher), cleaner fish and sea lice skirts used since 2015.

In its own sustainability report, Grieg said: “We will continue to make necessary investments to implement the most effective treatment methods. In this work, we keep a focus on non-chemical treatments. We have acquired significant extra capacity for so-called thermal treatment (heated water) by keeping available Thermolicers in the three most afflicted regions: Finnmark, Shetland and Rogaland. In addition, we will expand the use of sealice skirts in Finnmark and Shetland. We will also continue our efforts to make the lumpfish a more effective lice-eater.”

The GSI report showed that Grieg Shetland had 151 full-time permanent employees in 2016, fewer than its 193 staff in 2015 .

The number of Marine Harvest’s employees continues to grow, from 534 in 2013 to 615 last year.