Let's hope this is the end for Acoustic Deterrent Devices!

Last week saw an absolutely massive victory for all those who have campaigned for years to stop the illegal harassment of whales, dolphins and porpoise in our inshore waters. Environmental Standards Scotland have produced a report confirming not only that fish farm companies have been committing offences by their use of seal screeching devices but that they have been doing so with the knowledge and the tacit approval of Marine Scotland.

Let that sink in.

Marine Scotland, a branch of the civil service in Scotland and the governmental body in sole charge of protecting our marine environment, has been deliberately and cynically turning a blind eye to active criminality by the largely foreign owned companies who use our waters for the industrial production of salmon.

On 25 November 2019 a group of concerned citizens, all members of Coastal Communities Network, met with senior civil servants at Marine Scotland and sat in disbelief as we were lied to. In a nutshell:

(first) the use of a seal screecher (ADD) in Scotland is illegal in the absence of a licence from Marine Scotland

(second) licences cannot be granted, because their use inevitably “harasses or disturbs” protected species such as whales, dolphins or porpoise. (Only where there is no alternative will a licence be granted, e.g. temporary harbour works. Fish farms have other options.)

(third) Marine Scotland responded to this by turning a blind eye to wholesale criminality.

My subsequent letter to the Lord Advocate was passed to the very civil servant who spoke at that meeting!

Huge thanks to David Ainsley and Jean Ainsley at Sealife Adventures, also to Guy Linley-Adams and Coastal Communities Network.

More about this can be found in previous posts on this blog.

The full ESS report can be accessed here:

Environmental Standards Reporthttps://www.environmentalstandards.scot/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Environmental-Standards-Scotland-ADD-Informal-Resolution-Report.pdf

PS For the curious: Does anyone wonder if there was any pressure put on those civil servants to tell lies by a certain Scottish Government Minister?

Now for Goliath versus David!

Towards the end of last year there were brief reports in the Press about the case that has been raised in Oban Sheriff Court by the Norwegian MOWI fish farming giant against the environmental activist Don Staniford. To describe the case as a modern day Goliath versus David would be an understatement. It’s likely that battle will be joined sometime later this year and this post is just a quick update on what I’ve heard.

MOWI are one of the largest operators of industrial battery farming salmon units in the World, largely owned by Jon Fredriksen, described on Wikipedia as “a Norwegian-born Cypriot oil tanker and shipping billionaire businessman based in London.” By contrast Don Staniford is well known as a lone operator, who relies on practical and occasional financial support from concerned individuals, who appreciate his efforts in exposing the dark side of fish farming.

While the MOWI public relations machine tries to portray Don and the few others doing the same work as mini Greenpeace operations the precise opposite is true. Despite the claim made by industry spokesman and former LibDem MSP Tavish Scott that he is in the pay of anonymous foreign evildoers there is no evidence that he is anything other than what he says he is, a man who from a background of studying marine biology has dedicated his life to the environment, at great personal cost.

I admit to being a friend of Don, whom I met shortly after he returned to Scotland from spells in Canada and Norway and subsequently on various occasions when his activities have brought him to mid Argyll. I have been impressed at the depth of his research, his dedication and the care he takes with important matters such as, when gathering data, the safety of himself and others, the avoidance of causing distress and any cross transmission of infection. In particular his custom is not to go near sites when fish farm staff are already on them.

I do not have access to the papers lodged by MOWI in court and would be prohibited by law from reporting anything if I had been. However, it is clear that, bluntly put, MOWI are seeking to place extensive “exclusion zones” around each and every one of their over one hundred installations on the open waters of our West coast.

While you may not agree with what Don and his fellow activists are doing, I would ask you to reflect on the utter enormity of this for all of us as citizens. It is well established as a matter of our constitutional law that the seabed is held in trust under the Crown for all of us and that as members of the public we have certain rights, the principal of which are of free passage over the open sea, to fish and to use our coastal waters for leisure and recreation. Operators of fish farms are allowed to place the cage anchors in position on the seabed only in terms of leases which expressly reserve these rights to all of us.

The case raises issues of major constitutional importance regarding the safeguarding of one of Scotland’s greatest assets, our extensive seabed and in particular the inshore waters of what is now often referred to as the aquaculture coast.

Please take a minute or two to reflect on the implications for everyone. There is no way that fish farm staff can tell if someone is out fishing, rowing, wild swimming, in a canoe enjoying the Mid Argyll Kayak Trail, or a deadly “eco warrior” intent on exposing an instance of animal abuse or the misuse of toxic chemicals.

In defending our freedoms ideas and publicity are as important as financial backing. Anyone wanting to discuss things further should feel free to contact me by direct message.

0 comments

Battle is Joined!

Last week we learned, via a press release from MOWI, the largest industrial fish farmer in Scotland, that it has started court action against the well known environmental campaigner Don Staniford, aimed at putting an exclusion zone of fifteen metres around all of their fish farms on our West coast. If they are successful in persuading a court to do this there’s no doubt that other companies will follow suit and that anyone who sails or paddles near a fish farm is likely to be threatened with a writ.

As matters are in court I’ll not be commenting further at this stage, apart from to say that it seems unwise for the Scottish boss of MOWI, Ben Hadfield, to declare:

“This person’s behaviours and actions that we have borne witness to over the past two years gives cause for great concern, and is not something that our staff should have to endure whilst going about their daily work. Everyone should be able to go to work and expect their workplace to be free of harassment and intimidation.”

Without clear evidence to back it up this statement would appear on the face of it to be highly defamatory. From what I’ve seen of the images posted online by Don Staniford he, understandably, seems to work at times when workers are not present. The covert gathering of evidence of abuse is light years away from the openly and deliberately disruptive activities that are features of mass protest. Indeed when workboats and employees have turned up it’s not been obvious that they have been the victims.

MOWI in action at Loch Alsh

Freedom Food Limited

On 3 February Save Seil Sound wrote to the Scottish Charity

Regulator, OSCR, raising issues about Freedom Food Limited,

as follows: 

“(We are) … a campaign group consisting of ordinary citizens in mid Argyll concerned about the damage that is being caused to our local environment and wild life by the massive expansion of aquaculture. I am writing on behalf of the group to ask that you investigate and review the charitable status of Freedom Food Limited (“FFL”), a limited company incorporated in England and Wales (02723670), but which is registered with you as a Scottish Charity under SC038199. According to its published accounts the company is beneficially owned by the RSPCA, whose charitable activities seem to be confined exclusively to England and Wales.

For convenience I quote the sole object registered by FFL with you, as follows:

“To prevent cruelty to Animals by the promotion of humane farming. transportation, marketing and slaughter of farm animals, In particular but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, by Implementing a set of rearing and handling standards approved from time to time by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ("the RSPCA)”

As far as can be determined from the information published in their accounts and on the RSPCA website the sole activity carried on by FFL is running a scheme now known as “RSPCA Assured”, in terms of which companies operating various forms of battery farming are able to acquire a badge that eventually appears on the products retailed in supermarkets.  To quote from the website:

“RSPCA Assured, previously Freedom Food, is the RSPCA’s farm assurance and food labelling scheme.

It aims to improve the welfare of animals farmed for our food. RSPCA Assured assesses farms, hauliers and abattoirs to the RSPCA’s strict welfare standards. If they meet every standard, the RSPCA Assured label can be used on their product.

RSPCA Assured allows free range, organic, indoor and outdoor farms to join its scheme as long as the RSPCA’s welfare standards can be met. 

The only way of knowing if a product is RSPCA Assured is if it has the label on it. If it doesn't have the RSPCA Assured label then it is unlikely to have been reared to RSPCA welfare standards.”

In relation to aquaculture it can be estimated from analysis of the accounts that about two thirds of the aquaculture companies operating in Scotland are currently members of the scheme. Payments from these companies are a mixture of membership fees plus a sort of royalty based on the tonnages in the farms. (In recent years an average of 25% of the total stock in Scottish fish farms has died of disease, or has been lost through escapes and it’s not clear if the payments include these.) However there is no published list of members and thus no possibility for members of the public to know from which “farm” a particular product has come. Indeed some retailers have made up false names, such as Marks & Spencer’s “Lochmuir”.

This lack of transparency about the source means that it is impossible for anyone to know if the product he or she is buying has been produced by methods involving the deliberate infliction of cruelty, whether on the actual salmon or on other living creatures. Those opposed to industrial fish farming are so on a number of grounds. Those relevant to animal cruelty include the following:

1 Caging many thousands of salmon, a migratory species, can be  said to be intrinsically cruel. This is evidenced by the totally unnatural behaviour patterns, with the stronger fish on the surface constantly jumping to escape, while the weaker ones below gradually suffocate. This applies to each and every unit.

2 An inevitable consequence of the close confinement is that sea lice are now rife on the West coast. Almost all units are carrying burdens of lice in excess of limits set by the regulatory bodies. Plumes of sea lice eggs are emitted, drift long distances on the tides and attach themselves to wild salmon and sea trout. Individual campaigners have produced photographic evidence showing fish in serious distress, some with gaping holes where flesh has literally been eaten away. Again this problem is endemic.

3 On discovery of excess lice levels operators are required to take action, including in serious cases to cull the fish and put them out of their misery. There have been cases where this has only happened after visits from campaigners. 

4 Companies are now “delicing” salmon by pumping them through tubes into vats of hot water in wellboats, that then discharge the residual waste directly into the sea. On occasions salmon have not survived this process, which seems fundamentally a form of animal cruelty.

5 Salmon farmers routinely obtain government licences to shoot seals. In exchanges on social media representatives of the RSPCA have acknowledged that this happens on at least some of the farms they certify.

6 Accoustic Deterrent Devices, otherwise known as seal screamers, are routinely used to frighten off local seals, despite it’s being known that they damage the hearing of non-target species such as whales, porpoise and dolphins.

7 Companies are now routinely trapping wrasse and lumpfish, “cleaner fish” whose natural function is to keep the shallow inshore waters clear. They are then added to the fish cages to predate on the sea lice on the salmon. On conclusion of the growing cycle these are killed along with the salmon.

All of the foregoing processes are intrinsically cruel and some or all are practised on farms licensed by FFL. It can be argued that instead of preventing cruelty the company is promoting it.

One would expect a genuine certification process to have at least three components, (1) truly independent monitoring, (2) a proper system of inspection and (3) publication of results. Examination of what the RSPCA place on the public record suggests that each is lacking.

Regarding (1), monitoring is via a list that can be accessed here:

https://science.rspca.org.uk/sciencegroup/farmanimals/standards/salmon

It can be seen that the vast majority belong to fish farm companies operating on the West coast. Regarding (2) and (3) no details of inspections are given and nothing is published.

I respectfully suggest that rather than operating as a charity in Scotland, certainly as far as aquaculture is concerned, FFL are operating a licensing scheme to raise money for their sole shareholder, which does not operate here. I suggest that you ask them if any of the companies on the list participate in the scheme, if there have been actual inspections of sites in Scotland, if so for details of the results and to explain why nothing is published. Further it would be useful to know if they have ever refused an application from a fish farm company to join the scheme.”

We were surprised to find that OSCR do not get involved in charities regulated in both Scotland and England. They passed our complaint to the Charity Commissioners, who have now replied as follows:

“Thank you for your email which was referred to us by OSCR for our consideration, in which you raised concerns about FREEDOM FOOD LIMITED - 1059879.

Thank you for taking the time to notify the Charity Commission of your concerns relating to the charitable status of the above named organisation

Your concerns have been assessed by a senior case worker.  We have decided to keep the information you have provided on the charity’s records.  This means that we will reassess this matter should further information come to light.

I would also like to reassure you that the information you have provided will be used by the Commission to highlight particular areas of concern to the public and to drive improvements across the charity sector. We review all matters of concern that come into the organisation on a regular basis to inform our regulatory work and to identify issues or threats of harm to the sector as a whole.

We will also use this information to inform our proactive work with charities to address issues of concern.  This can result, for instance, in a spot check on a charity, a letter to trustees, or a regulatory alert to a particular group of charities

At the Charity Commission we want to ensure that charity can thrive and inspire trust, so once again I appreciate the time you have taken to contact us.”

So, to paraphrase the reply, 

“Thanks for trying Jimmy, now just shove off!”