SALMON, wild and farmed, crept on to the menus two of the Sunday papers this week. The Sunday Herald’s environment editor Rob Edwards reported on an alleged pesticide incident in which it was said that thousands of farmed salmon had been killed by an accidental overdose on a Shetland site.

Aquaculture industry facing reliability issues

The story claims environmental protection agency SEPA is investigating the report which may result in prosecution for the farming company involved, and a further blow to the reliability profile of the aquaculture industry..

Edwards claims up to 20,000 fish may have died as a result of the pesticides intended to kill sea lice and other parasites which infest marine cages with consequential threats to wild fish in the area.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Times says undersea cables linking offshore windfarms to the national grid, could pose a risk to marine species such as salmon and sea trout.

The story highlights a warning from the Atlantic Salmon Trust, the leading environmental charity, that magnetic fields generated by the subsea cables may interfere with the salmon’s migration patterns and ability to navigate home to spawn in Scottish rivers