Chamber and committees

You mentioned alternative measures for working with the sea lice, which leads me to ask about cleaner fish. In terms of biosecurity, does FHI have any views on, or has it made any assessment of, the biosafety risks that are associated with the introduction of wild-caught wrasse into salmon aquaculture facilities? Does FHI consider those risks to be lower when farmed cleaner fish are used?

You are seeing losses of more than 50 per cent at the moment.

So, you are saying that, in order for the fish health inspectorate to address recommendation 10, you would need more powers.

How often do you issue enforcement notices in the course of a year?

In terms of all the regulatory public bodies, do you have a sense that everyone is clear about their enforcement roles?

I am interested in how the FHI is integrating its evidence on the impact of climate change on mortality rates, which we have started to touch on. The mortality rate has been extremely high on many farms recently. The two worst-performing farms, both at Gigha, recently completed production cycles with a total mortality rate of over 80 per cent. The Coastal Communities Network has calculated, from SEPA’s figures, that 17.5 million farmed salmon died at sea in 2022 and that a million more died in hatcheries.

Recommendation 10 in the RECC report is that

“there should be a process in place which allows robust intervention by regulators when serious fish mortality events occur. ... this should include appropriate mechanisms to allow for the limiting or closing down of production until causes are addressed.”

Recommendation 9 is that

“no expansion should be permitted at sites which report high or significantly increased levels of mortalities, until these are addressed to the satisfaction of the appropriate regulatory bodies.”

I am interested in hearing from you whether it is correct that those recommendations have not been implemented yet.

Just one person goes to do that?

Good morning. Thanks for joining us.

My understanding is that the number of sea lice per fish was set at six in order to protect farmed fish, but one of our concerns is our wild salmon. I understand that the count on those fish is 12 times higher than the figure in the industry code of good practice—which has been exceeded by 30 farms in recent weeks—and that it is 30 times higher than Norway’s mandatory level on all farms in the spring. Apparently, Norway culls fish on farms where the level of 0.2 lice per fish is exceeded in the spring, in order to protect wild salmon. What are your thoughts on that? The recommendations in the report were also partly about protecting Scotland’s wild salmon.

Is there something that we need to do—such as introduce a regulation order—to protect the wild salmon better than we are doing already, if you are bound in a particular box by the 2007 act?

So, in your role as the fish health inspectorate, you do not see that you need to be aware of the issue to do with wild fish or to take action.