ULLAPOOL, U.K. — The fish float on the surface by the dozen, their bellies pointing toward the still-dark sky of the early morning. We are peering into a cage of an intensive Atlantic salmon farm, owned by the Norwegian multinational Mowi, in Upper Loch Torridon along Scotland’s west coast. It’s September 2024. It’s difficult to tell why these salmon died. On one carcass, a salmon louse (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) can be seen moving, but most of the fish in the pens, alive or dead, have abrasions and wounds, perhaps from treatments to eliminate lice and other parasites. Jamie Moyes, a local activist who has been investigating salmon farms for years and accompanied Mongabay to the farm in a small dinghy, inspects the fish carcasses while collecting footage to post on his social media channels. Behind him, the lights turn on in a boat, signaling that the company workers who are sleeping there have been alerted to our presence. “We filmed that farm a year and a half ago, and it was absolutely terrible,” Moyes said later, back on dry land, recalling a massive infestation of lice. “The most shocking thing today was the amount of death floating on the surface,” he said. “It could easily be up to 50 dead salmon in one cage, floating on the top. There’s something wrong there.” Activist Jamie Moyes on Upper Loch Torridon, with salmon cages in the background. Image by Francesco De Augustinis for Mongabay. A few weeks later, we find out the reason…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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