Ministers challenged to ‘intervene urgently’ to protect Scotland’s wild salmon

Scottish ministers are being challenged to “intervene urgently” to ensure that “legally robust” regulations are brought in to control parasite numbers in Scotland’s salmon farming industry.

Campaigners made the plea on the back of a challenge by salmon farmers against licence changes requiring regular monitoring and reporting of sea lice numbers – and could in some cases set a maximum permitted number of the parasites.

These notices of variation have now been quashed by the Scottish Government’s planning and environmental appeals division – a decision that has been welcomed by the industry body Salmon Scotland

However Nick Underdown, Scotland director of WildFish, claimed the situation left a “continued, regulatory shambles” as he hit out at the salmon farming industry, accusing the sector of seeking to “obstruct effective protective measures for wild salmon”.

The conditions in salmon farms can create what has been described as a “hotbed” for sea lice, but the parasites can then escape the pens, infecting wild salmon.

With the independent Salmon Interactions Working Group having told ministers back in 2020 that a “robust and durable framework” was needed to minimise the impact of the fish farming sector on wild salmon, Mr Underdown said that “Scotland still has no effective regulatory controls in place to limit this threat”.

He said: “This is an indefensible failure of government and regulation.

“Protecting our endangered wild Atlantic salmon must be the priority.

“Instead, we have a situation where the salmon farming industry has managed to overturn measures intended to protect wild fish, leaving regulators back at square one and our coastal waters without effective safeguards against sea lice pollution.

“Scottish ministers must intervene urgently to ensure that effective, legally robust and scientifically credible regulation is introduced without further delay.”

Mr Underdown added that”crucially” any new measures “must address the cumulative impacts of sea lice dispersing from multiple salmon farms”.

He said: “In the meantime, it would be wholly irresponsible to permit further expansion of salmon farming while effective safeguards for wild fish remain absent.”

A spokesperson for Salmon Scotland said: “We welcome the findings of the independent appeals process, which reinforce our concerns about both the legal basis of the framework and how it was introduced.

“We have always supported strong environmental protections, including for wild salmon.

“Our objective throughout has been to ensure regulation is effective, proportionate and grounded in sound science.”

The Salmon Scotland spokesperson said the sector wants to “work constructively” with both the Scottish Government and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to find an “appropriate way forward”.

They added: “Regulation must be based on robust evidence, good science and reliable data.

“This decision provides a route map for achieving that.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government remains committed to delivering an effective sea lice regulatory framework that supports the protection of wild salmonids.

“Parties will consider the recent decision in full and it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”