National Health Service confiscates salmon farm mortality
Within just two days of routine checks by the National Health Service last week, health inspectors discovered 400 kilos of salmon mortality for sale in one fish market and 450 kilos for sale in another. And not only salmon mortality – 200 kilos of hake, the most common whitefish of the region was also confiscated. According to Aqua.cl the salmon identified by health inspectors were obviously not wild caught due to the high volume, species homogeneity, and the notorious exterior lesions found on mortality fish. “It is very important that the population knows how to recognize a fish with these characteristics, realize that the fish died from unknown reasons, and therefore represents a health risk and cannot be consumed,” states Marcela Alvial, regional secretary of the Ministry of Health. This is a topic of concern for Chile’s salmon farming regions (Regions X and XI), since the price of salmon is beyond what the general population can afford, an active black market exists of farmed salmon robbed directly from the farm sites or from many points of transit from the farms, and sold throughout the national seafood market. Perhaps if the national association of salmon producers, SalmonChile, would agree to sell a minimum volume of product for the national market at a price that the general Chilean population could afford, the illegal salmon market would diminish and the population would not be subject to such health risks.
