Any doubt about the devastating impact sea lice levels can have on wild salmon and sea trout stocks will have been swept away by a report from Inland Fisheries Ireland that envisages an “extinction vortex” in salmon farming areas in the absence of remedial action. Published by Samuel Shephard and Patrick Gargan and based on 26 years of statistics from the Erriff River that flows into Killary harbour on the Mayo/Galway border, the report finds that elevated lice levels have reduced annual returns of wild fish by some 50 per cent. Rising sea temperatures and other factors are also limiting survival rates but salmon farms are the biggest threat…
Irish Times, 18/05/17. Read the full article ‘Aquaculture: protecting precious resources‘.
