We have
no problems with sea lice here
THE Meridian Salmon Group was launched earlier this year as the new name for Morpol’s UK fi sh farming and primary processing operations. The company resulted from Morpol’s acquisition of Cermaq’s Mainstream UK farms and Marine Farms’ UK Lakeland operations, as well as a number of smaller independent farms and processing operations, such as Brookside Products.
Orkney is one of three seawater farming ar- eas, along with Shetland and Argyll, for what has suddenly become one of the larger salmon farming companies in UK. I was fortunate enough to be given a whistle-stop tour of Me- ridian’s sites in Scapa Flow by the company’s Orkney farming manager, Robert Peterson. Robert started by explaining the current state of play regarding the formation of the new fi sh farming group, saying that all the sites are now managed as if they were one operation,
‘Overall production by Meridian sites will rise from just over 4,000 tonnes last year to 6-7,000 tonnes this year and this will increase once new sites, such as Cava, are developed.’ Robert pointed to newly assembled Fusion Marine cages near the fi sh farm buildings and pier at Lyness on the south-east of Hoy and
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explained that it has taken a long time to get ap- proval for the new site at Cava in Scapa Flow.
New sites
‘The Cava site will have a production capac- ity of 1500 tonnes, but it took over three-and- a-half years to get approval and there are pretty tight conditions,’ Robert explained. He added that they intend to submit applica- tions for other sites but face strong opposition, particularly from sea trout anglers, who say that salmon farms are affecting their sport. He explained that Meridian is working with Scottish Sea Farms, fi shing interests and environmental NGOs on Area Management Agreements to cover the Orkney sites, but this had been a long process so far.
‘But we have absolutely no problems with sea lice here,’ Robert said. ‘You just don’t see any lice on the fi sh, maybe the odd Caligus but virtually no Leps.
‘What we do have a problem with in Ork- ney is seals. There are huge numbers of grey seals here and many of them have a taste for salmon. We can lose hundreds of fi sh in a sin- gle incident. It’s particularly distressing when they just eat the liver and leave the rest of the carcase. And we fi nd that seal scarers do not provide long-term protection. Seals learn
31 Fish Farmer September/October 2011
Harvesting salmon at Meridian’s Chalmers site in Scapa Flow
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