Wild fish Interests
Effective containment is a priority for the salmon farming industry. All breaches of containment represent a significant commercial loss for the business.
Collaboration with wild fish interests and the Scottish Government is maintained through forum such as the Tri-Partite Working Group to ensure continuing improvement and to promote better and more productive working relationships in the interests of long-term sustainable salmon farming and wild salmon fisheries.
The salmon farming industry also collaborates with wild fish interests and the Scottish Government in the Ministerial Working Group on Aquaculture which oversees the progress of the Strategic Framework for Scottish Aquaculture.
Confirmed breaches of containment, January-April 2008
There have been no breaches of containment where salmon are known to have escaped from SSPO member companies during the above period.
SSPO represents some 95% of the tonnage of Scottish farmed salmon production.
A pre-requisite of membership to SSPO is compliance with the Code of Good Practice for Finfish Aquaculture.
What percentage of farmed salmon in Scottish waters did breaches of containment in 2007 represent?
The overwhelming majority of salmon farms have a strong record of containment of fish. As over 70million smolts (young fish) were put to sea at various times during the last two years, the breaches of containment where fish were known to have escaped during 2007 corresponded to less than 0.2% of the total amount of farmed salmon in Scottish waters during this period.
Code of Good Practice for Scottish Finfish Aquaculture (CoGP) CoGP Working Group |
Review and Synthesis of the Environmental Impacts of Aquaculture Scottish Association for Marine Science and Napier University in association with Scottish Executive >> link 2002 |
Establishing a fish farm Fisheries Research Services, Scottish Executive >> link |