There's some clarity this morning about the disastrous event surrounding the North Carradale Fish "Farm", courtesy of
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-53913708
A few words in this brief report stand out as requiring further comment.
First, we are told that mooring ropes breaking was the cause of this enormous group of cages going adrift. This, if true, is enormously worrying, because modern high tensile ropes are incredibly strong and simply shouldn't break, provided (a) the dimensions have been correct specified and (b) the mooring system has been competently inspected to assess any damage or deterioration. Bluntly, this should not have happened and that it has sends a very serious warning to the regulators, Marine Scotland.
This site is one of the new generation of locations that are alleged to have increased capacity to absorb the pollution that this industry, uniquely, is allowed to dump in the natural environment. These locations are almost certainly to be in ares of increased exposure to strong tidal streams and winter storms. A freedom of information request is going in today to Marine Scotland to discover what if any checking they did on the specifications for the mooring system in this case and to find out if they have carried out any subsequent inspections.
Second, the headline figure of escapes has to be read with the other totals. To the 48,834 escapees must be added 30,616 that died and 125,000 "harvested", i.e. culled in advance of full maturity. At, say 4 kilograms per fish these numbers approximate to 195 tonnes of escaped fish, that will become waste if they fail to survive (and may sire cross breed Norwegian/Scottish progeny if they do), 122.4 tonnes to be taken by road for ensiling and 500 tonnes off to market.
Harvesting early, due to a disaster such as this, is potentially risky to human health, if the salmon in question have recently been dosed with antibiotics or pesticides. At present there is no routine testing by any regulator and no information about whether treatments have recently been used at Carradale North.
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