Marine Harvest has accepted a fine of 360,000 kroner for a salmon escape in Kvænangen in Troms.The Directorate of Fisheries calls the incident a serious violation of regulations.
The Directorate of Fisheries’ report on the salmon escapes last summer pulls no punches in its criticism of the internal controls and procedures of fish farm giant Marine Harvest, the newspaper Nordlys writes.
It is unclear how many salmon that actually escaped from the farm at Alteidet in Kvænangen. Marine Harvest has estimated that there may have been between 1,300 and 3,000 fish that escaped, but according to the newspaper the actual figures show that 10,000 fish could not be accounted for. In their first message to the The Directorate of Fisheries, the company wrote that they suspected that eight salmon had escaped.
– We have a zero vision when it comes to escapes, and one escaped fish is one too many. After the incident at Black Mountain we have gone through all our procedures, and we have taken all the neccessary steps to ensure that such situations will not occur again, communications manager Eivind Nævdal-Bolstad in Marine Harvest says to Nordlys. He adds that the company’s employees do their utmost to prevent the fish from escaping.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
