All finfish farms are obliged to monitor for sealice on an ongoing basis and to take remedial action. This involves the inspection and sampling of each year class of fish at all fish farm sites fourteen times per annum, twice per month during March, April and May and monthly for the remainder of the year except December-January. Only one inspection is carried out during this period.
During 2020, a total of 209 sea lice reports (consisting of 108 MI reports and 101 farm reports) were received from 22 active farm sites.
One inspection was not undertaken by the Marine Institute on fish health grounds.
Shot Head farm will have a maximum permitted biomass of 2,800 tonnes over a 24-month production cycle and will have 18 pens
On 23rd of September, Salmon Watch Ireland filed an application at the High Court seeking judicial review of the Aquaculture Licences Appeals Board (ALAB) decision to approve the awarding of a licence for a new open-cage salmon farm at Shot Head in Bantry Bay.
Inland Fisheries Ireland, Sweetman and others filed a similar application.
The Aquaculture Licences Appeals Board has determined all appeals before it against the decision by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to grant an Aquaculture Licence to Bradán Fanad Teo t/a Marine Harvest Ireland on site Ref: T05/555 for the cultivation of Atlantic Salmon; Salmo Salar on a site on the foreshore at Shot Head, Bantry Bay, Co Cork.
The Board determined the Appeals pursuant to section 40(4)(b) of the Fisheries (Amendment) Act 1997 (as amended and substituted) by determining the appeals as if the application had been made to the Board in the first instance and by GRANTING a licence to the Applicant for the proposed activity on the Site, in accordance with the draft licence prepared by the Minister, but subject to the varied and amended Terms and Conditions as set out in the Determination. There were 14 appeals in total.
Copies of the Board’s determination in respect of each appeal are available on this website by following the link to Board Determinations 2015 – http://alab.ie/boarddeterminations/2015/
Each salmon farm license has a) stocking rate, and b) max allowable biomass
Licenses are all (or almost all) expired
There is no easy way to determine overstocking of salmon in salmon farms
There is no way way to extract the licenced stocking data in a structured format, as it is all held in various pdf docs
If a farm remains unstocked for two years, the license is revoked. But how can you tell when and where fish farms are not stocked? One clue would be via the Marine Institute Annual Sea Lice Reports, which contain results for all the sea lice inspections. See below for most recent report (2020)
Note: Salmon farm data is on the ‘to do’ list, as it is not in any structured or open public format… for reasons
The Board operates under the aegis of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
The function of the Board is to provide an independent authority for the determination of appeals against decisions of the relevant Minister on aquaculture licence applications.
A person aggrieved by a decision of the Minister on an aquaculture licence application, or by the revocation or amendment of an aquaculture licence, may make an appeal within one month of publication (in the case of a decision) or notification (in the case of revocation/amendment).
The Board is an independent body with its own funding provided for by the Oireachtas under Section 36 of the 1997 Act
ALAB Board
Section 23(2) of the 1997 Act provides that the Chairperson of the Board shall be appointed by the Government.
In accordance with Section 23(3) of the 1997 Act, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (“the Minister”) may make regulations prescribing not less than two organisations to nominate members of the Board.
Those organisations should, in the Minister’s opinion, be representative of the following groupings:
(a) organisations concerned with the promotion of the development of aquaculture or representative of persons carrying on the business of developing aquaculture;
(b) organisations concerned with the conservation, development and protection of wild fisheries;
(c) organisations representative of persons whose professions or occupations relate to physical planning and development;
(d) organisations representative of persons concerned with the protection and preservation of the environment and amenities;
(e) organisations representative of persons concerned with the promotion of general economic development and
(f) organisations representative of persons concerned with the promotion of community development.
ALAB commission technical advice, most recent list of advisors (for 2019) is:
List of persons engaged by the Board during 2019 pursuant to s.35 of the Fisheries (Amendment) Act
Technical Advice
Graham Saunders, Marine Ecologist and Environmental Consultant, 13 Princess Road, Haddington, EH41 HE UK
Aquafact International Services, 12 Kilkerrin Park, Liosban Industrial Estate, Tuam Road, Galway, H91 FW7V
Modelwork5, The Old Courtyard Newtownpark Ave., Blackrock, Co. Dublin
Dr. Tom Gittings, Ecological Consultant, 3 Coastguard Cottages, Roches Point, Whitegate, Co. Cork
Marie Louise Heffernan, Aster Environmental Consultants, Rosleague, Letterfrack, Co Galway.
The Kerry farm is licenced to harvest up to 500 tonnes (dead weight) of salmon in any one year, but they harvested just over 1100 tonnes in 2016 – over 121 per cent more than permitted.
Atlantic salmon Salmo salar has shown declines in abundance associated with reduced survival during marine life stages.
Key impacts on survival may include a changing ocean environment and salmon louse Lepeophtheirus salmonis infestation from aquaculture. A 26 yr record from the Erriff River (Western Ireland) was used to evaluate the contribution of sea lice from salmon aquaculture to declining returns of wild 1 sea-winter (1SW) salmon. Statistical models suggested that returns were >50% lower in years following high lice levels on nearby salmon farms during the smolt out-migration.
The long-term impact of salmon lice was explored by applying predicted annual loss rates as a multiplier to observed 1SW salmon returns. This produced a ‘lice-corrected’ return time series, i.e. an estimate of how returns might have looked in the absence of a serious aquaculture lice impact. The corrected time series was adjusted to account for some reduction in recruitment due to lost spawners.
Comparing observed and lice-corrected time series suggested that salmon lice have strongly reduced annual returns of 1SW Erriff salmon, but that the salmon lice impact does not explain a declining trend in this population.
Marine growth has strong implications for reproductive potential and ultimate fitness of sea trout.
Hence, the effects of anthropogenic factors on marine growth are important when evaluating population responses and implementing management measures.
Temporal changes in growth patterns of sea trout from three Norwegian and two Irish watercourses were examined, covering time spans of 25-65 years. Elemental chemistry Ba:Ca profiles and visual reading of fish scales were used to estimate smolt length and lifetime growth after first sea entry. Reduced growth after the first sea entry coincided with periods of nearby (<14 km) salmon-farming activity in impacted watersheds in both countries. Increased Ba:Ca levels were also recorded during these periods, likely indicating reduced residency in marine habitats caused by premature return to freshwater and estuaries.
An increase in estimated length at first sea entry coinciding with salmon-farming activity, for groups of fish sampled after sea migration, suggests a size-selective marine mortality, with the smallest individuals experiencing a larger mortality.
Salmon lice from aquaculture can cause negative impacts on sea trout Salmo trutta and other wild salmonids.
Long-term records from 5 Irish rivers were used to explore relationships between annual sea trout runs and the estimated total number of lice on nearby salmon farms. It was hypothesised that local environmental conditions may result in system-specific differences in realised louse pressure on sea trout. Louse count was thus tested as an absolute number and as a relative pressure, i.e. standardised by farm.
When the standardised total number of mobile lice on a given salmon farm in April was above ‘baseline’ level (50th percentile of observed annual values on that farm), there was a high probability of a below average sea trout run in the local river. Absolute louse counts did not show an important effect on runs.
This finding suggests that salmon farm louse production in spring can have a strong system-specific regulating effect on wild sea trout populations.
Total number of lice on a farm was most strongly driven by changes in individual infestation rate, with a lesser effect of stocking density.
Thresholds for number of mobile lice per farmed salmon required to maintain total louse count below the baseline varied with stocking density and among systems; greater density required lower infestation rate.
Regulations relying on a generic louse threshold to trigger treatment are not sufficient to protect sea trout populations – stocking density and site characteristics must be considered to evaluate system-specific infestation pressure and impacts on wild salmonids.
Salmon Farming: Complaint to the Commission of the European Communities about the Government of Ireland’s failure to comply with Community law
Salmon Watch Ireland has launched a Complaint to the Commission of European Communities.
This complaint focuses on Sections of the Fisheries Act 1997 which permits the continuation of salmon farm licences which have expired.
This is certainly a situation whereby the provisions of the Habitats Directive and Environmental Impact Assessment Directive are not being applied by the Irish state and as such are in contravention of both Directives.
The issue of access to justice without prohibitive cost is also being not applied and should be properly transposed into the Fisheries Act
1) Application of S. 19 (4), of the Fisheries (Amendment) Act 1997, Ireland.
(The impugned section of the act permits the indefinite operation of marine open cage salmon farms, with expired licenses, pending licence renewal and thereby avoiding the application of the provisions of the Habitats Directive and the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive).
2) Non-Transposition of Environmental Impact Assessment Directive 85/337/EEC 2011//92/EU.
(The Act has not been amended to transpose Article 11 of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive; 85/337/EEC – 2011//92/EU, i.e. Arhus Convention Rights to information, participation, and access to justice without prohibitive cost in environmental decision making).
The intention of this annual review is to present stock assessment and management advice for shellfisheries that may be subject to new management proposals or where scientific advice is required in relation to assessing the environmental impact of shellfish fisheries especially in areas designated under European Directives.
The review reflects the recent work of the Marine Institute (MI) in the biological assessment of shellfish fisheries and their interaction with the environment. The information and advice presented here for shellfish is complementary to that presented in the MI Stock Book on demersal and pelagic fisheries.
Separate treatment of shellfish is warranted as their biology and distribution, the assessment methods that can be applied to them and the system under which they are managed, all differ substantially to demersal and pelagic stocks.
Shellfish stocks are not generally assessed by The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and although they come under the competency of the Common Fisheries Policy they are generally not regulated by EU TAC and in the main, other than crab and scallop, are distributed inside the national 12 nm fisheries limit.
Management of these fisheries is within the competency of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM). A co-operative management framework introduced by the Governing Department and BIM in 2005 (Anon 2005), and under which a number of fishery management plans were developed, was, in 2014, replaced by the National and Regional Inshore Fisheries Forums (NIFF, RIFFs).
These bodies are consultative forums, the members of which are representative of the inshore fisheries sector and other stakeholder groups. The National forum (NIFF) provides a structure with which each of the regional forums can interact with each other and with the Marine Agencies, DAFM and the Minister.
Management of oyster fisheries is the responsibility of The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (DCCAE) implemented through Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI). In many cases, however, management responsibility for oysters is devolved through Fishery Orders or Aquaculture licences to local co-operatives. The main customers for this review are DAFM, RIFFs, NIFF and other Departments and Authorities listed above
