Mowi blames low oxygen levels for death of 15,000 fish
Mowi has attributed the death of around 15,000 Atlantic salmon at a farm in Chile last week to low oxygen levels in the water.
The die-off occurred at the Pulelo farm in the northern Chiloé sector, Los Lagos region, according to a report by state aquaculture agency Sernapesca.
Mowi Chile told Fish Farming Expert’s Chilean sister site, Salmonexpert.cl, that “the cause of fish mortality in our Pulelo centre was a drop in oxygen. These kinds of low oxygen events are quite common at this time of year and occur after the summer season”.
The company said the farm had been stocked last December “and we are talking about fish that had just reached an average weight of one kilo, with no harvest size [fish]”.
Disposal sites
The dead fish are being transferred to authorised final disposal sites, under the daily monitoring of Sernapesca.
No other salmon farms in the area have reported abnormal mortality.
The die-off follows the mass mortalities of 861,000 coho salmon being farmed by Invermar in Quellón, Los Lagos at the beginning of this month, and the death of 10,000 salmon at a Marine Farm site in the Aysen region on April 12.
Both die-offs were caused by the toxic microalgae Cochlodinium sp.
