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New fish farm nets show promise

Canada: Marine Harvest Canada experiments with net pens made of High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) in order to reduce predator attacks, escapes and high maintenance costs Odd Grydeland The only escape incident of any significance that Marine harvest has experienced during the past number of years was due to an anchor slippage and the subsequent submerged net pen, but the threat is always there that damage to nets can cause fish to escape. And while the escape of over a million farmed Atlantic salmon in the B.C./Washington State area since farming of the fish began in the late 1980’s, no self-sustainable populations have been found, and there is no evidence of cross-breeding with the genetically different five Pacific salmon species. But conventional nylon nets do require a fair amount of maintenance due to fouling with naturally occurring organisms. One single net can incur washing/treatment costs well of over CAD$ 12,000 (~€ 9,000) per year. But as James Gaskill, Production Director for Marine Harvest Canada explains, there seems to be another solution out there; After 25+ years, say good-bye to single nylon nets. These nets have served the industry for a long time but in order for us to be a more modern and progressive salmon farming company we are moving on. The nets of old bring to mind the term “net pens” which conjures up the image of something not as substantial as we’d like it to be. We are now in the age of sea cages where we require more protection, more resilience and more longevity. Our quest for an improved net began almost four years ago when we realized that what we were using had to change. We needed three things: a new design, a new material, and redundancy.

Salmon is number one fish in UK UK: Salmon is the number one fish in the UK, recently released data for 2012 reveals. Siri Elise Dybdal According to recently released market data by Nielsen for Seafish Industry Authority, salmon is the number one fish in the UK in value (£724,573,000 – 2012 compared to £665,331,000 – 2011) and had a 8.9 per cent value growth last year. It is the second biggest species in terms of volume behind tuna (47832000 tonnes - 2012). Last year, the volume of salmon sold in the UK increased by 7.4 per cent. Looking at the different segments, the moving annual total volume of ambient salmon saw a decrease of 18 per cent in 2012, but was up 2 per cent in value. The price per kg increased by 24 per cent to £11.05. Fresh salmon, however, saw a 17 per cent growth in volume and an 11 per cent increase in value. The price per kg was £16.84 - a drop of 5 per cent. The value of frozen salmon decreased by 6 per cent and the volume was down by 8 per cent. Price per kilo was £8.39, which was a reduction of 2 per cent. In the last three years, fresh salmon has had a small growth in value/volume market share from 80.4 in 2010 to 83.6 in 2012. There was a small decline in the frozen and ambient salmon shares.