The largest escape of farmed Salmon in a decade may have harmed Scotland’s pristine waters and wild fish populations, campaigners have warned.
The escape of 80,000 of the fish happened in February 2023 but has not been made public until now – prompting demands for transparency in the industry.
The shoal of cultivated fish broke loose through an unsecured hatch while being transported by ship from Loch Shin, in the Northwest Highlands, to Lochinver on Scotland’s west coast.
The Green Britain Foundation, an environmental charity founded by millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince, discovered the mass escape through a Freedom of Information request to the Scottish Government.
Mr Vince described it as ‘a wake-up call’ for the salmon farming 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,’ he said.
‘The fact that such a significant incident could go unreported for so long exposes dangerous blind spots in our environmental monitoring systems.
‘This incident underscores the urgent need for a complete reassessment of how we monitor and regulate the salmon farming industry.
The health of our oceans and the integrity of our endangered wild salmon populations are at stake.’
Farmed salmon are bred to grow big quickly, which makes them less suited to wild environments where fitness is key to survival.
If they breed with their wild counterparts, the offspring are often weak and prone to disease.
During a recent House of Lords debate, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean said: ‘Escapees bring diseases to the wild population and whole rivers have been cleaned out of wild fish.’
Wild Atlantic salmon, Scotland’s ‘King of Fish’, were last year classified as an endangered species, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature warning they are at risk of extinction.
The Scottish Government said the escape was not reported because it did not happen at a farm, but it is reviewing the way such incidents are recorded.
A spokesman said: ‘It is not currently a legal requirement for farmed fish transporters to report farmed fish escapes. However in this instance, the operator has followed best practice and made a notification.
‘Reported escapes from wellboats are a rare occurrence. The transporter involved in the escape incident has taken remedial action to avoid similar events in future. We will consider this incident and our reporting requirements further.’
Scottish salmon is the UK’s biggest food export. More than 64,000 tons of the fish were exported last year, worth more than £580 million.