Were David Attenborough to visit the west coast of Ireland in search of natural drama, he couldn’t select two more controversial species for study than Caligus elongatus orLepeoptheirus salmonis. Long before fish farm cages were ever imagined on this island’s coastline, sea lice larvae were the bane of wild salmon and sea trout, attaching themselves and grazing on the mucus, skin and blood of the fish. The same lice were regarded as a good sign for the restaurateur, indicating the freshness of a returning wild fish. However, the role that aquaculture might play in elevating lice levels – transferred from adult wild to farmed fish and from there to juvenile wild fish leaving river mouths – came into sharp focus over two decades ago when there was a much publicised collapse of sea trout stocks in the western game fisheries…
Irish Times, 11/07/13. Read the full article ‘State bodies at loggerheads over proposed salmon farm‘.
