Mainstream Scotland pays £13K to fishery board over mystery escape

This follows the discovery last September by the River Forth Fisheries Trust (RFFT) of juvenile farmed salmon in the River Devon. This is a tributary of the Forth, at a site immediately downstream of a fish farm operated by Mainstream Scotland, part of the giant Norwegian salmon production conglomerate CERMAQ.  

The company initially refused to accept that the fish originated from its facility – even though the location at Fossaway Bridge is upstream of a waterfall that is impassable to wild salmon. Following the intervention of Fish Legal, Mainstream has now accepted liability and in an out of court settlement paid more than £13k to cover both the initial expenses incurred by the Forth District Salmon Fishery Board (FDSFB) and the costs of a subsequent electro-fishing clear-up operation. Patrick Fothringham, Director of the FDSFB and RFFT, said: "Prior to this incident we were not even aware that salmon were being farmed in the Devon catchment. As far as we are aware, this is the first example in Scotland of an escape from a so-called 'closed containment unit'. The company maintains that it was adhering to the salmon farming industry's much-vaunted code of good practice. If indeed it was, the fish still managed to escape. This suggests that, as many of us have argued for years, this code falls far short of being fit for purpose in terms of minimising the impact on wild fish.”