Sea Lice Tax: A recent commentary in Intrafish from Professor Bård Misund of the Business School at the University of Stavanger suggests that the Norwegian Government is considering imposing environment taxes on the salmon farming industry to reduce the environmental impact of salmon lice and reduce fish mortality.
Professor Misund says that increased attention to the number of dead fish, fish welfare and sea lice in aquaculture has become the Norwegian Government’s Achillies heel. He adds that the state is both the industry’s de facto largest owner and supremely responsible for ensuring that the industry is regulated according to society’s requirement for its environmental footprint and fish welfare.
However, it is perfectly clear that the salmon farming industry is not regulated at all by society’s requirement but rather by some theoretical and unproven academic principles dictated by a group of researchers who are not only involved in the regulation but also underwrite the research. There appears to be no involvement of anyone from the real word, whether the industry or wider business. Sea lice regulation is set in some academic model land which has little resemblance to reality. How many sea lice researchers have actually worked in the pressurised commercial sector for which they aim to establish regulation? Instead, they live in a world funded by research grants where they are measured by the number of papers they publish, irrespective of the value of the content. It doesn’t matter to them whether they damage the viability of an industry they don’t actually understand because it is not part of their model land. I have mentioned previously that NASCO have screened 2,784 scientific papers and reports about sea lice of which just 17 use primary data. What do the rest tell us? The answer is that sea lice and salmon farming are a problem. This is not surprising since almost all these thousands of papers are aimed at proving sea lice have a negative impact whereas there are a handful, all ignored, that show sea lice are not the issue everyone else claims them to be.
Bård Misund also brings into the debate the principle that the polluter pays. However, when did a naturally occurring parasite of salmon become pollution. Anglers get very excited when they catch a salmon that is carrying sea lice as it shows a freshly run fish. Maybe a freshly run fish tastes better than one that has been in a river for some time but to them it is the presence of the sea lice that is important. Perhaps an angler can explain why they get excited when they see sea lice on the fish they catch, but that they highly criticise the salmon farming industry when farmed fish carry the same parasite.
Professor Misund cites a classic example of environmental taxation. He says that this would be when a factory pollutes a river, and this pollution leads to the death of fish in the river which affects the economy of the fishermen fishing the river. According to his theory, the factory imposes a cost on society (represented by the fishermen) which the factory does not pay for. He suggests that unless the factory is penalised, the pollution will continue.
This is a really interesting example because whilst the factory or salmon farm is to be penalised for allegedly killing wild fish in the river to the detriment of fishermen, the fishermen appear immune to any penalties for killing the same fish from the same river. In fact, the fishermen have a much greater impact on the stock of wild fish in the river than any factory or salmon farm. In the 31 years to 2023 fishermen in Norway have caught and killed 3,319,885 wild salmon without any penalty and they continue to catch and kill these fish even though salmon stocks in Norwegian rivers are now in a perilous state. Yet, it is not just salmon stocks that are being pillaged without penalty. Over the same period, 1,743,276 sea trout have also been caught and killed by anglers for sport without any environmental penalty. Adding Char to the list, a total of 5.38 million fish have been lost to Norwegian rivers since 1993 as a result of angling.
It’s not surprising that the wild fish sector is driving the campaign against salmon farming. They are simply deflecting attention away from their own damaging activities. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the academic Scientific Committee for Salmon Management (VRL) do not see angling as a threat to wild salmon and sea trout. They point the finger at salmon farming arguing that the industry destroys up to an estimated and theoretical 40,000 salmon smolts a year. Even if this figure were true, which it is not, then a total of 1.24 million salmon smolts would be lost since 1993 to farming compared to 3,32 million adult salmon by angling.
As I have indicated, these scientists are living in a theoretical model land in which they see the estimated loss of 1.24 salmon smolts to be a greater threat to wild salmon stocks than the confirmed premature death of 3.32 million adult salmon which were heading up rivers to breed but were prevented from doing so by the actions of the angling fraternity.
Who should be paying for the perceived environmental damage? It certainly isn’t the salmon farming industry.
Kitasoo Xai’xais: Salmon Business has published an open letter from Kitasoo Xai’xais Deputy Chief Councillor Isaiah Robinson countering calls for external oversight and the removal of salmon farms from British Columbia. His letter begins:
Decisions about our fish farms should come from those directly involved, not from activists unfamiliar with our work. In British Columbia, 100% of fish farms operate in partnership with First Nations, underscoring our commitment to sustainable stewardship.
It’s remarkable that those who have never run fish farms in their territories and have repeatedly declined our invitations to visit the Kitasoo Xai’xais fish farms, now feel entitled to dictate the transition process. They haven’t seen firsthand our innovation, technology, or the quality of our fish. These are not scientists or veterinarians; they are activists with a vendetta against fish farms, using them as a scapegoat to distract from real threats to wild salmon-issues like climate change, overfishing, and sport fishing.
What strikes me most about the letter is Mr Robinson’s comment that those opposed to salmon farming have repeatedly declined invitations to visit their fish farms. Such invitations have been repeatedly extended to salmon farm activists in every salmon farming country, but they always refuse to engage. It is not hard to explain why. They are always confident to talk to those who are not part of the various industries because their knowledge is unlikely to be sufficiently robust that they can challenge what these activists claim. When it comes to the possibility of talking to experienced industry personnel, it seems their confidence evaporates and these activists are guaranteed to run a mile.
For example, as Brian Kingzett of BC Salmon Farmers has recently highlighted (and I have discussed in reLAKSation more than once), that the salmon politics in British Columbia is based about the concern that the 60 or so farms have significant but unproven impacts on wild pink salmon. According to Brian, the irony of Pacific pink salmon invading Norway with its 1,200 farms is pretty funny. Brian’s comments were prompted by the news that the Norwegian Government has allocated $2.6 million to combat the spread of pink salmon.
It is somewhat unbelievable that no-one has asked Alexandra Morton, Martin Krkosek or any of the other Canadian scientists or groups like Clayoquot Action, Wild Canada First or the Pacific Salmon Foundation how pink salmon has managed to spread throughout northern Norway despite the widespread presence of salmon farms, yet in BC, the same salmon farms are responsible for wiping out local populations of the same fish. The answer is simple. They have no answer. They therefore avoid the questions. yet continue to lobby hard for the removal of salmon farms anyway.
The same can be seen in Scotland. A letter in a recent West Highland Free Press from Dr James Merryweather ended in a comment about me – ‘His frequent complaints that the Coastal Communities Network refuses to debate him misses the point. CCN is not refusing. It was long ago agreed that CCN should just ignore him.’
Why have they decided to ignore me. The answer is that they cannot answer the questions I would ask so better to ignore me whilst also vilifying me in the hope that it will denigrate my science.
I am more than happy to challenge CCN or Wild Fish or FMS or the AST or SEPA or even Marine Directorate scientists to debate the issues, but in my opinion, none appear to have the confidence to do so.
However, the international salmon farming industry should follow Isiah Robinson’s lead and call out these critics etc for exactly what they are.
Which community: In mid-October one of my regular readers sent me a screen shot of a posting from ‘Inside Scottish Salmon Feedlots’, a website run by angler and anti-salmon farm campaigner, Corin Smith. It stated that a coalition of conservation and community groups from around the world spearheaded in Scotland by Corin Smith has been helping our coastal communities resist unwanted expansion, In March 2024 the ‘residents’ of Ullapool asked for help. Mr Smith has produced a film which explains what happened. The film is supposedly due for release in February 2025.
Corin Smith has recently sent a letter to the Rural Affairs Committee detailing his take on a question asked by MSP Arianne Burgess during the salmon inquiry. It is about whether Mowi had always intended to site a feed barge on a farm near Ullapool. This is a technicality and not really about the future of salmon farming in Scotland, and so it is unclear why it was raised during the inquiry. However, critics are keen to nitpick the tiniest issue in order to paint the salmon industry in the worst possible light.
What is more interesting about Mr Smith’s letter is that it provides a link to this film https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_eP2bnDVBs-ptXUtrmH24yv37jxMMF0M/view so it is possible to watch it now rather than wait until next February.
What strikes me most about the film is the supposed emphasis on community, yet it appears that it is not about community at all, but rather a group of anti-salmon farming campaigners whose intention is to try to close down the salmon farming industry for reasons best known to themselves.
The narrative begins by saying:
We are in Ullapool (March 2024) and we are having a community event to talk about the issues of salmon farming that we’ve been seeing across the last three decades and discuss what comes next for Scotland.”
This community event was fronted by a panel of six. Of these six, I believe that just one lives in the salmon farming area. None of the other five appears to be involved in community issues with two working for the salmon angler’s representative organisation, Wild Fish, one works for Open Seas, a charity that states on its website that they are interested in protecting the marine environment using evidence and they are not afraid to call out misinformation. Unfortunately, this meeting proved to be a continual stream of misinformation, which was never challenged. The last member of the panel who works for an organisation represents the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust. The remaining panellists include one who campaigns for the protection of the seabed and the other who is an angling guide, helping people catch fish for sport. Finally, I understand that two of the panel have now moved on to pastures new and no longer campaign against salmon farms.
It might be suggested that this was not an event that was representative of the community at all but a campaign meeting to persuade local people about the evils of salmon farming, as perceived by various national charities and organisations, although the evidence from the video indicates that this was not an audience with an open mind.
Anyone watching the video can be left in no doubt as to the motivation of this meeting or the video as the host was wearing a shirt stating, ‘Salmon Farms Out.’
This is yet another example where the anti-salmon farming lobby like to repeat their story to those who are already converted to their views. If representatives of the salmon farming industry had been invited to speak at such a community event, then it is likely that this panel would have refused to show up. The reality is that they only like to hear one voice and that is their own.