MIllions of Dead Fish - NL, Scotland?

You probably have seen the video of the sewage/pulverized dead fish from NL in late September.

The CBC images of the swill are here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/fortune-bay-cleanup-1.5305994.

So how many fish were killed by 'warm water' - an issue that would have killed 0 fish if they were instead in an on-land farm? Well, let's see, 1 metric tonne = 1,000 kg and a harvestable fish is 4 - 5 kg.

In other words, if at harvestable size, there would be: 1000/5 = 200 to 1000/4 = 250 salmon per mt.

How many fish are in a farm? Well, the average stocking is 600,000 salmon. That would be between: 600,000/250 to 600,000/200 = 2,400- to 3,000-mt.

And how many fish are killed across an industry? Here are recent numbers from Scotland:

2019 (up to the end of June):  8,821 tonnes

2018: 16,710 tonnes

2017: 25,736 tonnes

2016: 22,472 tonnes

2015: 18, 607 tonnes

2014: 16,167 tonnes

2013: 10,521 tonnes

So, because most mortalities happen after the end of June, it is conservative to double the June morts and thus 17,642 mt of dead fish for 2019 is a very reasonable number.

Well, it's pretty gross, but it is a reasonable number.

That would mean the industry mortalities were: 17,642 X 200 to 17642 X 250 = 3.5- to 4.4-million dead fish in Scotland. Think how bad that would smell. 

That is 3.5/.6 to 4.4/.6 = 5.8 to 7.3 farms, all dead - in NL. And remember that the hatcheries in Scotland had even more deaths, a 45% rate of mortalities, meaning 45% of eggs failed to become smolts that were outplanted later in the year. That means, as hard as it is to be believed, that the mortality rate in Scotland is 70%.

I would think it hard to stay in business if you killed off 70% of your stock. It would also mean that individual salmon are completely expendable. That would also mean that that warm and fuzzy expression, used all over the world, including here in BC: 'Our farmers care about their fishies' is simply spin, to put it politely. The fish mean nothing.

And remember that two posts ago, Mowi Harvest, put 20 pages of risks with farmed salmon in a prospectus to buy some Cermaq shares in 2013. It knows just how bad it can get: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/09/how-bad-are-farmed-fish-mowi-knows.html.

Oh, and it now owns the Northern Harvest fish farm in NL where all the fish became pink swill (even though they loved every single one).

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And: the post from which the Scotland numbers of dead fish come is this:  https://donstaniford.typepad.com/my-blog/2019/10/solving-scottish-salmons-multi-million-mortality-problem-.html. A lot of work went into the post. It is a good read, for many issues.

Update, Oct 5, 2019:  the Atlantic Salmon Federation has a response to the problem, and a link to the CBC video:  https://www.asf.ca/news-and-magazine/salmon-news/pink-liquid-in-fortune-bay-nl. And the article has the various excuses from Northern Harvest, none of which sound realistic. The reason is that there would have been 0 mortalities if the fish had been raised on land.

Update, Oct 5: the estimates of dead Atlantics in NL run from 2.5- to 7-million dead fish.

Update, Oct 5: and just how are the wild salmon in Atlantic Canada doing? Things aren't good:  https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/Library/335147.pdf.