Chamber and committees

My question is about recommendation 22 in the REC Committee’s report, which urges

“enhancement in the way sea lice data ... is presented”

and calls for

“a comprehensive, accessible reporting system”.

I am interested in your thoughts about the way in which the data is currently presented and whether you think it is comprehensive and accessible.

Whom could we talk to who could give a definitive answer on that?

What would make it more accessible?

Our wild salmon are endangered and SEPA has an approach of monitoring that there is no deterioration. However, I understand that that is about no deterioration of farmed fish rather than of wild fish, and I think that we should be addressing the fact that we are going to be seeing deterioration of wild fish.

That forum is the formal mechanism that you are asking for. Who should take that forward?

Okay. Thank you.

I asked our previous witness about the no deterioration approach. SEPA says that it can prevent deterioration of wild salmon populations by allowing the highest-risk farms to continue to have sea lice levels as high as their recent levels, instead of reducing them. Do you think that that will prevent wild salmon numbers from falling due to sea lice?

I come back to your earlier comment that SEPA needs to take a cumulative approach. It has said that it is taking more of a case-by-case approach. Can you say a bit more about why you think it needs to be cumulative?

My final question is on the way in which data is presented. In its recommendation 22, the REC Committee said that there needs to be an

“enhancement in the way sea lice data ... is presented”

and it called for

“a comprehensive, accessible reporting system”.

I am interested in your thoughts on how data is currently presented. Is it comprehensive and accessible?

That is certainly the case, but I have heard anecdotally that there are curtains of sea lice in lochs where there are fish farms, so it seems that the presence of fish farming causes an increase in sea lice, hence the need to use chemicals or cleaner fish to mitigate that and keep lice numbers down.