Scots farmed salmon boss Tavish Scott has claimed “extreme activists” are carrying out a coordinated campaign to tarnish and shut down the sector.
Ex-Scottish Lib Dem leader Scott – now CEO of industry body Salmon Scotland – addressed MSPs who are carrying out an inquiry into salmon farming. It comes amid record premature mortalities on fish farms and mounting concerns over impacts on animal welfare and the environment.
But Scott claimed this year’s survival rates in salmon pens at sea “are the best in five years. And in an attack on anti-farming campaigners who often attempt to covertly film at facilities, he claimed salmon workers face a barrage of “abuse and intimidatory tactics” from activists.
In 2023, the last full year of figures, a staggering record total of 17.4million salmon died on farms before they could reach people’s plates. That exceeded the record 17.2million mortalities logged in 2022.
The shocking scale of fish mortalities on farms has been blamed by the industry on outside factors with some linked to climate change. But campaigners blame the conditions in cages which they say are cruel and cramped, causing disease and parasites like lice to spread.
The current inquiry into the salmon sector follows a 2018 parly probe which called for urgent action to address eco and welfare concerns around industrial fish farming. We told last week how one west coast farm at Dunstaffnage, near Oban, was accused of a “cover-up” after it was filmed disposing of tons of dead fish ahead of a fact-finding by MSPs from the inquiry on the same day.
The firm involved, Scottish Sea Farms, said it was following routine procedures. This week, Scottish Government inspectors said they had “no concerns” with the company’s actions.
Charity Animal Equality UK, which revealed the footage, had claimed the fish farm operator was trying to point a “wholly inaccurate” picture of the industry to the Holyrood inquiry. But speaking to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee today, which is conducting the inquiry, Scott dismissed Animal Equality UK’s claims as being part of a “deliberate, orchestrated and co-ordinated campaign by anti-salmon farming extreme activists…
“This is an obvious and deliberate attempt to derail this committee’s focus on what has changed in Scotland’s salmon farming sector since 2018.”
The Salmon Scotland boss went on to claim aquaculture workers were sometimes “assailed with abuse and intimidatory tactics from extreme activists”. Scott added: “Our people, our men and women who work in our companies and our extensive supply chain businesses from Unst in the north all the way down to the south of Scotland should not have to put up with this behaviour.
“These people would not just shut down Scotland’s salmon farming sector, but they would shut down farming as well.” Farmed Scottish salmon is the UK’s top food export and brought in nearly £600million last year while supporting thousands of jobs.
Dr Ralph Bickerdike, head of fish health at Scottish Sea Farms, said in the pen filmed by campaigners at Dunstaffnage, some 250 dead fish were removed that day.
He told MSPs: “There was no attempt whatsoever to cover up, there was no special treatment for the visit. We do this as routine every day.”
Abigail Penny, executive director of Animal Equality UK, hit back: “The public outcry upon seeing this footage speaks for itself. Containers full to the brim of dead animals tell a story that percentages on a page cannot.
“The fact this doesn’t even cause regulators to bat an eyelid is deeply troubling. If this is business as usual, MSPs must question whether this is an industry Scotland should continue supporting.”
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