from Caledonian Mercury, 16 February 2010
Wild salmon and trout populations in Scotland are under threat from a plague of ‘super lice’ at Norwegian fish farms, angling groups have warned.
Salmon farms in Norway have suffered from a huge rise of infestations by sea lice, which are becoming increasingly resistant to pesticides. The lice spread to wild fish, weakening and killing them.
Scottish anglers fear that the super lice will spread to Scotland’s fish farms, then deplete the nation’s vulnerable wild stocks. The prospects for wild salmon and trout are “deeply worrying”, they say.
Norway is the world’s biggest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon, producing around 865,000 tonnes a year. Scotland is second, with about 133,000 tonnes a year.
But the Scottish government wants to expand production by about a third - a prospect that is greeted with alarm by the Sea Trout Group. The group was set up by the Scottish Anglers National Association and the Salmon and Trout Association in 1997 to campaign for more controls on fish farming.
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