Nýjar rannsóknir sýna að aðferðir við laxeldi eru svo skaðlegar löxunum að þegar kemur að slátrun er annar hver fiskur heyrnarlaus eða með skerta heyrn. Þetta kemur sorglega lítið á óvart. Að ala dýr í miklum þrengslum með höfuðáherslu á hraðan vöxt er alltaf á kostnað velferðar þeirra.
Skv. frétt um rannsóknina á síðu Melbourne háskóla:
“The odds are that every second farmed salmon we eat has lost much of its ability to hear.
Although fish senses aren’t usually a consideration when they’re on a plate, researchers now know that deafness in farmed salmon is due to a deformity in the ear, caused by accelerated growth in aquaculture.
The findings, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, raise significant welfare issues and may also explain the poor survival of farmed hatchlings in conservation programs.
Scientists from the University of Melbourne looked at salmon farmed in Norway, Chile, Scotland, Canada and Australia and found the deformity was widespread.
The study’s lead author, Ms Tormey Reimer, says when they went looking for the cause of the deformity they found that the fastest-growing fish were three times more likely to be afflicted than the slowest, even at the same age. …
The deformation was first recorded in the 1960s, but in 2016 this team was the first to show it affects more than 95 per cent of fully-grown hatchery-produced fish globally.”