Two new escape incidents in May
On 5 May this year, 700 trout escaped from Dawnresh Farming Ltd’s Tervine Farm in Loch Awe. This was the second escape incident from a Dawnfresh site this year. In January, 4671 trout escaped from the company’s site in Etive-Ardchattan Bay.
On the 17th May, the first escape incident involving salmon this year occurred at Lighthouse Caledonia’s farm in Aird, in the Scottish Highlands. 17,766 2.5kg-sized salmon escaped, according to Scottish Government statistics.
Su Cox of Lighthouse Caledonia told FishfarmingXpert that the breach of containment was due to a hole in the net from seal damage.
At the recent parliament debate, the Scottish Minister for Environment -Roseanna Cunningham -commented on the latest escape.
She pointed out that the industry's current code of good practice had already driven significant improvements in containment and the minimising of fish escapes, and underlined that the number of escapes in 2008 was significantly down on that for 2007, and that the had only been one reported salmon escape in 2009.
“One escape is still one escape too many, but we should welcome the fact that a clear downward trend is emerging. The industry deserves a great deal of credit for that improvement and we will continue to work with it as the inspection regime under the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act 2007 beds in,” Cunningham said.
She added: “Predators can be a cause of escapes from fish farms, and the containment sub-group will examine how such events can be avoided, taking into account international best practice.”
