Vandalism causes trout escape
According to fish farm escape statistics published on the Scottish government website Scottish Aquaculture, a breach of containment occurred at Dawnfresh Farming Ltd’s Loch Earn rainbow trout site in Lochearnhead in Perthshire on 15 May. It is still unknown how many fish escaped, but the fish were 20 months old and of an average weight of 3.9kg. The escape was caused by vandalism.
Gideon Pringe, fish farm manager at Dawnfresh, says the company harvested the cage affected yesterday (Tuesday). Despite the 1m slash in the net, only very few fish had managed to escape. "We were very lucky," he said.
The company discovered the hole after local anglers said they had caught fish from the farm in the loch. All in all five fish were caught. The company has security on site and anti slash protection on the nets which they believed were adequate. However, this had been lifted and slashed 1.5m down.
He believes the perpetrator could be an angler wanting bigger fish, but underlines that this is no normal fisherman. "It has a hooligan element," he says and adds that such vandalism puts jobs and the company's reputation on the line.
Pringle says they will now modify the nets further in order to avoid similar incidents in the future.
