TWO days after you published the article by Rob Edwards (A disgrace: 10 million salmon thrown away by fish farms in last year alone, Investigation, October 8) about the 10,000,000 salmon killed last year by disease, parasites and other problems on the plethora of polluting floating factory fish farms around our coast, yet another salmon farm fiasco hit the headlines.
Marine Harvest is in the thick of it again as thousands of fish at their farm on Loch Erisort, Lewis succumb to what is believed to be pasteurella skyensis, a bacterium named after the Isle of Skye where it was first identified. Ironically pasteurella skyensis is the most Scottish thing about this unfolding disaster as Marine Harvest is a Norwegian company.
Once again trucks are carrying tonnes of dead, diseased fish to England for incineration as toxic waste. How many rivers with vulnerable populations of native wild salmon will these contaminated convoys cross on the way to Widnes?
Instead of kowtowing to the mainly foreign-owned salmon farming industry the Scottish Government must protect our marine environment and our native salmon and sea trout. We need an immediate moratorium on the massive expansion of the industry. Fish farmers must build facilities to deal with their toxic waste on-site instead of transporting it hundreds of miles with the risk of poisoning numerous salmon rivers.
I urge Nicola Sturgeon and her Cabinet to stop promoting salmon farming and recognise it for the serious environmental hazard it is.
John F. Robins,
Save Our Seals Fund
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