Áttatíuþúsund eldislaxaseiði sluppu í sjóinn við Skotland þegar loka á brunnbáti gaf sig þegar verið var að flytja seiðin. Þetta er meira magn en allur villti íslenski laxastofninn, sem er talinn vera um sextíuþúsund.
Fyrirtækið sem átti í hlut gerði sitt besta til að hylma yfir atburðinn og eftirlitsstofnanir í Skotlandi brugðust hlutverki sínu. Hið sanna kom ekki í ljós fyrr en skosk náttúruverndarsamtök gátu knúið upplýsingar um það sem gerðist fram með kæru til úrskurðarnefndar um upplýsingamál.
Þetta er sagan endalausa í þessum mengandi og skaðlega iðnaði sem sjókvíaeldi á laxi er.
Villti laxastofninn í Skotlandi er í verulega slæmri stöðu. Þessi slepping hefur aukið enn frekar á áþján hans.
The Times fjallar um sleppislysið (áskriftar krafist)
Tímaritið Oceanographic birtir einnig ítarlega umfjöllun:
The mass escape took place in February 2023 during the transportation of some 80,000 salmon smolts from Loch Shin. Yet, while the event marks the largest mass escape of its kind in the last decade, it had – until now – gone unreported to the public, raising serious questions over the transparency issues at Scottish government level.
The major incident, which campaigners say poses a severe risk of damaging Scotland’s endangered wild Atlantic salmon, only came to light due to a critical gap in official reporting mechanisms.
Dale Vince, founder of the Green Britain Foundation, said: “This massive escape is a wake-up call for the damaging industry. For them, it’s about lost profit but for the rest of us it’s about the very real threat to our delicate marine ecosystems.
“The fact that such a significant incident could go unreported for so long exposes dangerous blind spots in our environmental monitoring systems.”
Responding to calls upon the Freedom of Information act made by the Green Britain Foundation, the Scottish Government shared details of the previously unreported escape. The 80,000 salmon smolts, all of which were around 12 months old, were being transported by the Canadian-owned Cooke Scotland from Loch Shin. The fish were able to escape in transit via an unsecured hatch Cooke Scotland have put down to ‘human error’.
While such incidents have occurred before, few have been on such a scale. Meanwhile, officials only record escapes linked to specific farm sites. Because the escape took place during transportation, the obligation to report the incident falls outside of the official monitoring framework. It’s this loophole which has allowed one of Scotland’s largest salmon escapes to go unnoticed for nearly two years.
“This incident underscores the urgent need for a complete reassessment of how we monitor and regulate the salmon farming industry,” said Vince. “The health of our oceans and the integrity of our endangered wild salmon populations are at stake.”