Jellyfish ‘wreak havoc’ on Scottish salmon farms killing 200,000 fish

A jellyfish taxon has near implicit 200,000 salmon in Scotland dormant successful what is believed to beryllium the azygous worst incidental of its type.

The String of Pearls Jellyfish (Apolemia uvaria), besides known arsenic drawstring jellyfish oregon barbed ligament jellyfish, has struck 2 Scottish salmon farms, according to The Green Britain Foundation.

The taxon antecedently ‘wreaked havoc’ connected Norway’s salmon industry erstwhile jellyfish killed much than 3 million salmon in Norwegian farms successful the wintertime of 2023.

Footage released by the instauration conscionable 2 days earlier the jellyfish onslaught was officially detected shows tonnes of salmon of varying sizes being removed from the site.

The drawstring jellyfish ‘unleash a devastating assault’ on salmon, arsenic their venomous tentacles inflict excruciating burns connected the fish’s skin, eyes, and gills.

Trapped successful densely packed pens, the salmon are incapable to flight the relentless stings, leaving them with gaping wounds and immense stress.

These injuries render the food susceptible to corruption and disease, often resulting successful a dilatory and agonising decease if near untreated.

Dale Vince, laminitis of the Green Britain Foundation, sees this lawsuit arsenic further grounds of the request for stricter oversight of the salmon farming industry.

He said: ‘This jellyfish onslaught is the latest illustration of however the food farming manufacture is failing to header with biology challenges. We routinely spot them utilizing the onshore and oversea arsenic a sewer for their toxic business, and present quality is warring back.

‘It’s clip for existent accountability and for these companies to look the consequences of their actions.’

The jellyfish’s accomplishment serves arsenic a stark informing for open-net salmon farming and the ‘devastating economical and ecological consequences’ it tin bring.

As clime alteration continues to disrupt marine ecosystems, these farms are progressively exposed to unpredictable and catastrophic threats.

Environmental experts accidental this incidental highlights the urgent request to signifier retired open-net farming entirely, but until then, stricter regulations and robust biology safeguards indispensable beryllium enforced to forestall further damage.

The caller reports from Norway bespeak the jellyfish menace to salmon farms is ongoing and perchance increasing. In precocious October 2024, Norway’s regulator, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority, warned salmon farmers to hole for jellyfish attacks.

The authorization advised farmers to enactment measures successful spot to woody with the interaction of jellyfish connected their food stocks. Jellyfish had been observed successful galore accumulation areas, causing terrible burns to the tegument and gills of salmon, putting them astatine precocious hazard for corruption and disease.

A spokesperson for the proprietor of 1 of the salmon farms progressive acknowledged jellyfish blooms tin affect salmon health successful respective antithetic ways.

‘To negociate this emerging threat, intensive monitoring programmes are successful spot astatine Mowi’s salmon farms crossed Scotland,’ said a spokesperson for Mowi Scotland. ‘There are regular tracking efforts, which impact h2o sampling, taxon recognition and counts, and somesthesia and oxygen monitoring astatine assorted depths.’

A Scottish authorities spokesperson said the wellness of farmed food was a priority: ‘While we bash not person broad accusation regarding which taxon of jellyfish are contiguous connected food farms successful each lawsuit of reported mortality, the salmon farming assemblage is focused connected amended knowing the interaction of jellyfish arsenic a origin of mortality.’

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