Monitoring fish crucial as industry expands

Siri Elise Dybdal

Professor Huntingford, who is the former president of the World Council of Fisheries Society and professor of functional ecology at University of Glasgow, has a long standing interest in fish welfare and has more than 40 years experience in fish biology research

She says it will be essential to continue to have good husbandry practises in salmon production in the future.

“There will be new technology and inventions to help reduce stress; for example, techniques are being developed for low-stress hands-off methods for transferring fish.

“It is about keeping it as natural as possible, to minimize and reduce stress,” Professor Huntingford says.

With new aquaculture species emerging, it will also be important to develop husbandry systems that take account of welfare needs. These sectors will be able to look at salmon farming and learn from their mistakes, she points out.

In Scotland, as in other salmon producing countries, high sea lice numbers is one of the key issues in relation to fish welfare. The sue of cleaner wrasse to remove the lice is a positive development , but it is not enough and a lot of research is and will continue to focus on this problem.

According to Professor Huntingford, we also need to develop strains of fish for intensive aquaculture that are less easily stressed. She explains that one family of salmon can have individuals with different stress coping strategies that will respond in different ways. Some fish are not as easily stressed as others, and engage proactively with the environment. In intensive farming, proactive fish seem to do better, and we need to find a way of farming fish that recognises this, she highlights.