No salmon have escaped in 2008

According to the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation’s (SSPO) website, no farmed salmon escaped from their member companies' farms in the period January-April 2008. SSPO represents some 95% of the tonnage of Scottish farmed salmon production.

This should be pleasing news to conservationists, who have warned that Scotland's wild salmon could be driven to extinction, due to escapes from salmon farms.

Scottish Government figures obtained by the newspaper Aberdeen Press and Journal at the end of last year, revealed that in 2007, close to 200,000 salmon escaped in Scotland, compared with 299,983 in 2006.

On the SSPO website, the organisation comments on last years escapes:

“The overwhelming majority of salmon farms have a strong record of containment of fish. As over 70million smolts (young fish) were put to sea at various times during the last two years, the breaches of containment where fish were known to have escaped during 2007 corresponded to less than 0.2% of the total amount of farmed salmon in Scottish waters during this period.”