fish farm in our loch

[skyetoyman]

Sadly a planning request has been submitted to site a large fish farm in our very small loch.
Just 300 metres to the left of the picture below. Some 200 metres out from the jetty is Pooltiel reef.

Where I launch from

No doubt there is someone in the forum that can put a well worded objection together on the planning web page.
see this for details http://lochpooltiel.org/. dive,dive,dive post has some pictures of the marine life

Every little helps.

Finstrokes has a location. http://www.finstrokes.com/dive-guides/5 ... -pier.html

[rivers]

Sorry to hear that. That silliness over here started in BC, Canada and has since spread to the US and Alaska. Kinda like an out of control corporate brush fire and no rain in sight. I used to be a commercial salmon fisherman in AK and have no advice how to stop farming other than buying direct from your local fisherman. I agree REAL FISH DON'T EAT PELLETS. If you plan to build a web site do lotsa research. There's been much discussion regarding heath value of wild-vs-farm fish, bay (loch) pollution, farm escapees screwing up wild stocks. Good luck but it's fighting a frustrating uphill battle against the golden rule. He who has the most gold...rules. Good luck, stock up on headache powder but me thinks your loch and local fisherman be screwed.

[Rob Ripley]

Check out the D'entrecasteaux Channel in Tasmania, I visited the area a couple of years ago. Last check with Giggle Earth was 120 +

[Buzzook]

Guys, I hate to rain on your parade, but at the rate the human population is expanding we will soon have crashed all the stocks of fish in all the oceans and completely stuffed the marine ecosystem.

Farming fish is the sensible solution to depleted wild fish stocks and human demand for fish protein.

Statements like "wild fish don't eat pellets" simply demonstrate your ignorance of what "food" actually is. It's a bunch of chemicals. The form in which they are ingested is immaterial to the health of the animal.

You might as well say "wild sheep don't need shearing", or "wild cows don't need milking".

Lettuce, tomatoes etc grow perfectly well in liquid in hydroponics farms, with the nutrients metered for adequate delivery. So provided the farms aren't like the "battery" chicken and pig farms, which are now proven to produce substandard meat due to the housing conditions, rather than the feed, such farms should be OK.

Sure, there may eventually be an issue with the build up of fish poo beneath anchored fish pounds - and I for one am not at all happy about the lack of progress on this issue - but at the end of the day, it's only 'fertiliser'.

If the silly buggers could only lay a tarp/tray underneath, and suck it out every few months and evaporate the water out of it, they could sell another product besides fish.

Opposition to such fish farms tends to be NIMBY-ism. It spoils the 'look' of the place. Well, so does your house. And every other man-made structure on the face of the planet. Build a bridge and get over it.

[skyetoyman]

I am not objecting to the fish farm - just its location - 200m uptide of a brilliant reef. The "medicines" they put in are toxic. The other side of the loch would be fine.

[Collector Inspector]

Big Bisinus knows best and they always have operational things well sorted in their favour before they lobby some local Admin body.

I feel for this.

B

[spiderg]

My sympathy goes to the people of Skye, fish farms are becoming too common, especially in beautiful scenic places like northern Scotland. There are fish farms scattered around Scotland and the only happy people are those who own them. According to expert food people, the fish are never like wild fish, and the environment is badly damaged. I suggest they find a large derelict piece of land, dig a big hole and build their farms, leave the natural lochs alone.

I can see Slyetoyman's point. Buddy you have my backing on this one.

Gerard

[Stelios_Rjk]

Fish from fish farms taste like salad. Even wild fish near fish farms taste a little bit different. Pollution is inevitable. I hope you avoid this fish farm.

The only good thing is that Sparus aurata from fish farms when cooked on fire can't be burned! Because of the excessive fat!

[Oyster 49]

Interesting one. Some good points raised. I think the key thing for any objectors in anything like this is to avoid looking like NIMBYs, unfortunately too many objections fail as they come over as objecting because they can, rather than for a really good reason.

Terry seems to have the right idea, as not necessarily objecting to the fish farm, but the location of it. So perhaps the protest should go along that line? Try to influence the development by working with the local authority and developers?

As for the ins and outs of fish farming, I have no idea, but you only have to look at the southern North Sea where I sail to see what over-fishing has done. The wildlife is slowly coming back, but it will take another 20 years I suspect. Without fish farming could we end up with fish becoming a delicacy?

[Buzzook]

O49 +1

I agree totally.

Similarly the Atlantic salmon farmed in Tasmania is done under very controlled conditions and is constantly monitored by the relevant authorities and by animal welfare organisations.

The fish tastes fantastic and provides much needed income and industry to otherwise economically depressed areas. Like the west coast of Scotland.

Experiments here with farming tuna have, as yet, been unsuccessful for various reasons, but huge dollars are being spent on solving these issues, as tuna is THE rolled gold oceanic fish, economically, and wild native stocks of which will be worst affected by the growth in the Asian population, as tuna is a delicacy commanding big dollars on the floor of Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo.

In Oz, there are on-land aqua-culture farms for trout, yabbies and the unique West Australian marron (a freshwater cray) and these are sold into high-end restaurants the world over. At great profit.

Experiments are also being undertaken to farm the famous Murray Cod, which, due to turbidity and predation by imported species, is in decline in all our inland rivers. Mainly thanks to American catfish and European Carp that some idiots introduced back in the 19th century.

In Europe, snails (escargot) are farmed in battery-style operations, as are the frogs whose legs become grenouille on restaurant plates.

And the Wild Oxen of Asia would no longer recognise their modern-day brethren, the Poll Hereford - whose 'selective' breeding has been undertaken for centuries by farmers in the UK.

Ditto ditto every other species of animal farmed by us humans as a protein source. In that context, fish from 'farms' is no different from lamb or beef...or chicken, or goat....

As O49 said, it's important not to look like a NIMBY.

The notion that the 'pristine' appearance of the lock may be 'marred' by the presence of a fish farm is very much a *subjective* viewpoint, rather than an *objective* one. To deny this is to do your own 'cause' an injustice.

I don't disagree that the loch would remain 'looking pristine' without the addition of the fish farm. But the patch of land your house is built on would also 'look pristine' had a house not been built there...or a town...or a city.....

The only way such an argument can be made to stick is if the 'view' or 'appearance' can be adjudged to have some sort of national or international significance as a place of special or unique beauty being significant because of this beauty.

Or it has seagrass beds that are vital to the development of fish fingerlings and the entire coastal ecosystem......or whatever....

The view alone is not enough. Unfortunately.

[Williegunn]

Guys, I hate to rain on your parade,

Statements like "wild fish don't eat pellets" simply demonstrate your ignorance of what "food" actually is.

Truly ignorant post!
Where do you think the pellets come from? The Pellet shop?
No they come from other fish so the wild fish of the ocean are caught to be turned into pellets so ignorant people can eat salmon, or what they think is salmon which really has no resemblance to wild salmon apart from the name.

Just do not wade into a discussion till you have a minute inkling of some facts!

[Buzzook]

There's no need to be offensive!

But your post clearly demonstrates that it is you who has no idea of the underlying chemical nature of biology and the ingestion or absorption of the necessary chemical cocktail required to sustain life.

Contrary to your claim, pellets are seldom made from other fish, and where they do contain a portion of fish meal, this is the scrapings off the floor of other fish processing factories, that would otherwise go to waste as landfill.

I'm sure that if you tried salmon from one side of the country and then tried salmon from the opposite side of the country, the small differences in their wild food sources would make them taste quite different from each other.

To claim that 'wild salmon tastes nothing like farmed salmon' is a statement of fact so obvious it needs neither elucidation nor contradiction.

It's like saying 'water is wet' or 'the sky is blue'.

It has no meaning other than that to which you choose to attach it - as a pejorative.

And the choice of the pejorative usage is a 'choice' rather than an absolute.

Sort of like the belief in God. Your choice to believe does not automatically convey either wisdom or truth.

Farmed fish exist. They do taste slightly different from their wild brethren, due in no small part to the source of their food, as you would expect.

This is not news.

[Williegunn]

There's no need to be offensive!

But your post clearly demonstrates that it is you who has no idea of the underlying chemical nature of biology and the ingestion or absorption of the necessary chemical cocktail required to sustain life.

Here are a few links for you to read to see why I am so opposed to fishing farming. Wild salmon grow in the rivers of Scotland and other countries then swim north towards Greenland where they eat shrimp and other crustaceans to develop the pink colouring of their flesh. Wild salmon swim in a cage surround by their own faeces, the pink colour of their flesh comes from chemicals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvTZ3x6 ... r_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dJoGvH ... r_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zheaUQq ... r_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IKf6QJ ... r_embedded

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2013/06/11/ ... ed-salmon/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... ycott.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-s ... s-24016826

When you have looked at those can you still tell me farmed salmon is the same as wild?

[Charles uk]

Without the farmed fish I fear there would be a lot less wild ones!
A large number of the wild ones come from seeded rivers, farming keeps the prices lower.

[Williegunn]

Without the farmed fish I fear there would be a lot less wild ones!
A large number of the wild ones come from seeded rivers, farming keeps the prices lower.

Without the fish farms there would be a lot more wild ones!
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home ... n.21946288
The scientific study published in Agricultural Sciences by a scientist of Ireland's Marine Institute, which, it has been claimed, justified the salmon fishing industry's stance that a mere 1%-2% of wild salmon deaths are due to sea lice, has been challenged in a key publication.

A recent critique by scientists from Scotland, Canada and Norway and led by Martin Krkosek of the University of Toronto's department of ecology and evolutionary biology, published in the Journal of Fish Diseases, argues that the Marine Institute's work has "fundamental errors".

Hughie Campbell Adamson, chairman of the Salmon and Trout Association Scotland (S&TAS) is now demanding that the Scottish Salmon Producers' Organisation (SSPO) retract a statement made by its chairman, Professor Phil Thomas, six months ago dismissing the impact of sea lice on wild salmon.

The new interpretation of the research claims there are "grave mistakes in measuring control and treatment groups, leading to wide inaccuracies".

The fresh examination of the original data shows that the impact of sea lice on wild salmon causes a far higher loss (34%) of those returning to Irish rivers than the 1% loss that was calculated in the original paper.