Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 8 December 2021
Leaked photos show rogue salmon industry’s wild fish bycatch
Bob Brown Foundation has obtained photographs of hundreds of wild fish languishing and dying in a Tasmanian salmon farm. According to the source, the wild fish have become stuck in the nets then died during the bathing process. The Foundation has been informed that this is a regular occurrence.
“The salmon industry is not authorised to take these fish from the wild and so this is yet another example of why this environmentally unsustainable industry must not expand, not a single pen more in our waters. This is a failure by the Tasmanian government to regulate effectively and a failure to protect our wild marine life,” said Bob Brown Foundation Fish Farms and Marine Campaigner Bec Howarth.
Bob Brown Foundation has been informed that the wild fish in the photographs, which include mackerel, herring, leatherjacket and butterfly gurnard, swim into the salmon pens and get stuck in there as they grow. They die during the bathing process and from suffocation from being out of the water.
“If a Tasmanian recreational or commercial fisher is caught with fish they are unauthorised to take they face extremely heavy fines, demerit points, loss of license, equipment and even jail. So why isn’t this level of scrutiny extended to the salmon industry? We are calling on the Tasmanian government to hold the salmon industry accountable and investigate this unauthorised activity. This proves that this environmentally unsustainable industry is rogue and must not be allowed to expand and impact our marine life further. I have written to the Premier to inform him of this issue and asked him what he is going to do about it,” said Bec Howarth.
Media release – Rosalie Woodruff MP, Greens Environment spokesperson, 8 December 2021
Wild Fish Protections AWOL
Leaked photos of hundreds of wild fish trapped and killed in a Tasmanian salmon farm are yet another example of the concerning environmental impacts of this industry, and the lack of effective regulations and oversight under the Liberal Government.
These photos reveal the impact of just one salmon farm at one point in time, but we understand wild fish deaths are widespread and common. Unfortunately this is entirely unsurprising, given existing evidence that salmon farming also causes the suffering and death of seals, dolphins and sea birds too.
Fish farm operators have no licence to catch wild fish, yet that’s exactly what they’re doing. These photos document hundreds of fish at a time being killed without authorisation or record, and with apparently no concern from regulatory authorities.
Under the Liberals, there’s one rule for ordinary Tasmanians, and another for powerful industries. If a recreational fisher was to do something like this, government agencies would rightly come down on them like a tonne of bricks. However, fish farm operators are allowed to go about their business with impunity, no matter the impact on wild fish populations.
This is exactly the behaviour the Environment Protection Authority should be preventing, but we have almost never seen any enforcement actions. Instead of protecting Tasmania’s waterways, the EPA acts as if its role is to maintain the regularity of market supply for the fish farm industry.
Evidence of the salmon farm industry’s negative environmental impacts continues to accumulate, yet the Liberal and Labor parties seem intent on out doing each other to do the industry’s bidding.
The Tasmanian clean and green brand has been hard-won, but must be authentic to remain credible. Without independent and strong protection for the environment, we risk losing irreplaceable natural values as well as consumer confidence.
Media release – Tasmanian Alliance for Marine Protection, 8 December 2021
Bob Brown Foundation evidence of native fish kills is one more nail in the coffin for the salmon industry
Pictorial proof that thousands of native fish die after being caught up in industrial salmon feedlots and operations is one more nail in the coffin of a rogue salmon industry that cares nothing for the state’s marine life and only for profit.
The photos of masses of dead native fish comes as no surprise to the Tasmanian Alliance for Marine Protection which has received many such reports over the years. Those reports include many hundreds of native fish sucked up in the process of so-called ‘bathing’ when salmon are vacuumed through pipes into ships, passed through chemically treated water, and spat out back into the feedlots.
These deaths are neither rare nor unexpected but they have been hidden not just from the public but from regulators and government.
This is one more reason why native fish catches diminish so substantially wherever the industry operates.
Only when the salmon industry moves on land will the destruction of our waterways be brought to an end.
TAMP applauds the Bob Brown Foundation for discovering and reporting the photographic evidence.
