{"id":730,"date":"2010-03-05T22:02:29","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T21:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bxttlines.wordpress.com\/?p=730"},"modified":"2010-03-05T22:02:29","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T21:02:29","slug":"asfb-calls-for-tesco-to-act-against-incompetent-salmon-producers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/2010\/03\/05\/asfb-calls-for-tesco-to-act-against-incompetent-salmon-producers\/","title":{"rendered":"ASFB calls for Tesco to act against ‘incompetent’ salmon producers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SSPO\"<\/a>\"ASFB\"<\/a><\/p>\n

RETAIL GIANTS like Tesco were today urged to recognise the environmental damage caused by salmon farms which fail to prevent accidental releases of fish into the wild, following an escape of up to 100,000 smolts into Loch Lochy, near Fort William, Scotland.<\/p>\n

In a thinly-veiled call for a boycott of salmon farmers, such as Marine Harvest, by major retailers, Andrew Wallace, managing director of the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards (ASFB<\/a>) and the Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland (RAFTS<\/a>), raised the temperature of the war of words between the administrators of Scotland\u2019s wild salmon fisheries and the salmon farming industry.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Andrew Wallace, ASFB: Escapes 'appalling'<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wallace denounced as \u201cappalling\u201d an escape of Atlantic salmon smolts from Marine Harvest cages in Loch Lochy, part of the Caledonian Canal, north of Fort William. He said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep on hearing about the high standards the industry purports to work to but elementary problems such as containment remain unresolved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain highly sceptical that the regulatory framework for salmon farming and the industry\u2019s much-trumpeted Code of Good Practice are anywhere near adequate to properly manage an industry that only gets away with this sort of incompetence because the problems are out of sight and out of mind\u201d.<\/p>\n

The ASFB claimed Marine Harvest, a Tesco supplier, had been unable to put an exact figure on the smolt escape which it said had been caused by a \u201cstorm event\u201d at the end of last month.<\/p>\n

Wallace\u2019s broadside continued: \u201cThis latest escape suggests that the industry\u2019s appalling record on containment is continuing. It has occurred at a new so-called \u2018state of the art\u2019 farm which, despite industry fanfare, has proved incapable of withstanding the impact of moderate winds, the kind that are hardly uncommon in the west Highlands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes a mockery of Marine Harvest\u2019s mission statement \u2013 to \u2018minimise the environmental impact of its activities and operate in harmony with the environment\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he added:<\/p>\n

It is time that responsible retailers such as Tesco considered the environmental damage caused by suppliers like Marine Harvest\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wallace\u2019s comments are bound to call into question the current effectiveness of the Government\u2019s Tripartite Working Group, set up in 1999 to try to forge \u201ctrust and consensus\u201d between the aquaculture industry and wild salmon interests.<\/p>\n

Both the ASFB and the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation (SSPO<\/a>) are represented on the body.<\/p>\n

Neither the SSPO nor Marine Harvest was contactable for comment tonight, but B<\/span>etween <\/span>The Lines<\/span> will seek responses from both organisations as soon as possible and an explanation for the growing anger expressed by the ASFB.<\/p>\n

The ASFB and SSPO locked horns last autumn over a claim by the SSPO<\/a> chief executive Scott Landsburgh, that wild Scottish salmon stocks were already in decline before the advent of farm cages n 1972. Wallace said the statement was \u201cunacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

In January Jon Gibb, Clerk to the Lochaber District Salmon Fishery Board, responsible for wild fish stocks in the Lochy catchment, which has one of the highest densities of fish farms in Scotland, backed conservationist pleas<\/a> to the Government for more rigorous controls on sea lice infestations in aquaculture cages amid growing fears of the effect of parasites on natural salmon and sea trout populations.<\/p>\n

Gibb said today: \u201cThrough interbreeding escaped farmed salmon pose a major risk to the genetic integrity and thus the survival of wild salmon populations. Just a few miles away there are huge non-migratory fish waterbodies such as Loch Laggan that could easily accommodate many of these smolt farms. But yet they continue to proliferate in pristine salmon and sea trout lochs where they are proven to have a detrimental impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he feared that \u201cLochy salmon could be driven into extinction before someone has the sense to put a stop to this madness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RETAIL GIANTS like Tesco were today urged to recognise the environmental damage caused by salmon farms which fail to prevent accidental releases of fish into the wild, following an escape of up to 100,000 smolts into Loch Lochy, near Fort William, Scotland. In a thinly-veiled call for a boycott of salmon farmers, such as Marine…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13,18,104,110,117,135,149,158,162,176,183,194,205,219],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game","tag-aquaculture","tag-asfb","tag-loch-lochy","tag-lochaber","tag-marine-harvest","tag-parasites","tag-river-lochy","tag-salmon","tag-salmon-farming","tag-sea-lice","tag-smolts","tag-sspo","tag-tesco","tag-wild-fish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btl.longlinemedia.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}