War of words over salmon study

ORGANISATIONS opposing the proposed 456-hectare deep-sea fish farm off the North Clare coast have this week countered claims made by Bord Iascaigh Mhara, the body behind the project.

 

Last week BIM cited new research from NUI Galway and the Marine Institute published in the Journal of Fish Diseases, which it said showed sea lice infestation is unlikely to be a significant factor influencing the conservation status of salmon stocks.

Donal Maguire, director of Aquaculture Development Services of BIM stated, “This is confirmation of the validity of the approach that BIM has taken with regard to the development of the aquaculture industry. The scare stories in relation to sea lice being a threat to wild salmon put out by the opponents of salmon farming have no basis in scientific fact.”

Friends of The Irish Environment accused BIM of bringing Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, into “disrepute” after it announced that recent research supports its claim that there is “no evidence to support the contention that salmon farming causes any environmental damage”.

Director of Friends of The Irish Environment, Tony Lowes, said the BIM is relying on a study “that found the level of sea lice mortality from fish farms was just one per cent of overall mortality of salmon smolts”. But he said “the overall survival rate of salmon smolts is only 5% at the best of times – everything wants to eat them”.

What mattered, he said, was that “of the 5% that should be returning, tests show that 40% of these are not”.

Mr Lowes said the recent paper quoted by BIM conducted by four Marine Institute scientists had acknowledged that “sea lice-induced mortality is significant in just under 40% of the releases in the study”.
Karin Dubsky of Coastwatch agreed that the research “supports the view that infestation of outwardly migrating salmon smolts with salmon lice has a negative impact on fitness and can contribute to increased marine mortality”.

Alex O’Donnovan, secretary of the Save Bantry Bay group formed to oppose the planned further expansion of salmon farming in Bantry Bay, said “it is such findings that led to a moratorium on the expansion of open net salmon farming in the National Seafood Programme 2007 – 2013. Far from these issues now being resolved, research continues to show sea lice emanating from salmon farms are destroying wild salmon populations”.

Mr O’Donnovan continued, “Save Bantry Bay had found that as early as 1994 an Irish government-commissioned report recommended that open net salmon farms should not be located within 20km of rivers that host wild salmon”.

Patrick O’Flaherty, chairman of Great Fishing Houses of Ireland, said attempts by BIM “to pretend that salmon farming does not affect wild fish stocks would be, if not so serious, laughable. They most certainly must cause raised eyebrows among the international marine science community who, almost to a man, cite aquaculture as a serious threat to wild salmon stocks”. The project he said “beggars belief”.

Mr Lowes claimed even the definition of the proposal by BIM as a “deep sea location” was “pure spin”.

“Deep sea means open, unsheltered deep water. The site is in the shallow sheltered inlet of Galway Bay and the water is less than 40m deep. Deep sea only begins at depths of 1,000m,” he said.

“The activities of BIM in their promotion of the Galway Bay salmon farm are now bringing the minister into disrepute,” he added.

This week Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) said the recent Marine Institute (MI) publication identifies that sea lice emanating from aquaculture facilities can cause mortality to wild Atlantic salmon.  “In this regard, the recent publication (Jackson et al, 2012) concurs with previously published international research (Krkosek et al, 2012 & Gargan et al, 2012). IFI welcomes the fact that there is now a clear acceptance of the negative impact of sea lice on juvenile salmon and the debate can now progress to identify the best methodologies to reduce or eliminate this impact. IFI would also like to see similar progress in relation to the issue of escaped farmed salmon.”

IFI is, it says, supportive of the development of “a sustainable aquaculture industry and welcome all advances in research that will underpin the sustainability of this industry and safeguard wild salmon and sea trout stocks into the future.”

Recommendations to address the issues of sea lice, escapes, location and scale have been made in IFI’s submission to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on the Environmental Impact Statement regarding the Galway Bay fish farm development.

IFI is a statutory body operating under the aegis of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources while BIM and the Marine Institute are both under the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.