Report blames government for fish farm 'tragedy'

WILD salmon are now outnumbered 48 to one by farmed fish, according to a new report that blames the government for failing to check the aquaculture industry over the past decade.

The report, Protecting Wild Salmon From the Impacts of Aquaculture, released today, says the decline of wild stocks is increasingly linked with sea-lice infestations from fish farms and the mixing of escaped farmed salmon with wild populations.

The conservation organisation WWF and the Atlantic Salmon Federation say Scotland has a big part to play in this "unfolding tragedy".

They say a decade of poorly regulated expansion in fish farming in Scotland, Canada, the US, Norway, Ireland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands has jeopardised the future of wild stocks.

The report comes ahead of next week’s meeting of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation in Edinburgh, when delegates will chart their progress on restoring wild salmon populations.

Helen McLachlan, the marine policy officer for WWF Scotland, said: "While populations of wild Atlantic salmon have declined by 45 per cent from 1983 to 2001, farmed salmon production in the north Atlantic has been allowed to grow to over 700,000 tonnes in 2002 - a 55-fold increase in 20 years.

"Government efforts are clearly lagging far behind this growing crisis."

The report accuses the Scottish Executive of failing to regulate the industry and says little action has been taken to restrict farms at the mouth of salmon rivers, where sea-lice infestations most affect wild salmon.