A jellyfish species that has been wreaking havoc on Norway’s salmon enterprise has arrived in Scotland, the place it has killed 200,000 specific particular person fish, inflicting important environmental harm and prompting urgent movement from environmental officers.
The string of pearls Jellyfish (Apolemia uvaria), additionally known as ‘string jellyfish’ or ‘barbed wire jellyfish’, has struck two Scottish salmon farms (one in Invertote, the alternative in Muck) resulting in a substantial emergency harvest and marking what’s now believed to be the one worst incident involving these jellyfish on a farm in Scotland.
Based mostly on Fish Nicely being Inspectorate data printed all through every web sites, some 32,000 fish have been killed by string jellyfish on the Invertote farm between 28 October and three November 2024. At Muck Fish Farm, that amount reached a whole of 163,232 salmon. In every circumstances, the remaining salmon have been harvested beneath emergency operations.
Footage launched at current by the environmental investigations and advertising and marketing marketing campaign platform Inexperienced Britain Foundation, and captured at Invertote merely two days sooner than the jellyfish assault was formally detected and declared, reveals tonnes of salmon of assorted sizes being far from the situation. The incident is the latest in a string of events, claims the group, to deal with failure among the many many Scottish salmon farming enterprise to cope with environmental modifications.
String jellyfish are notorious for unleashing a devastating assault on salmon via using their venomous tentacles to inflict burns on the fish’s pores and pores and skin, eyes, and gills. Trapped in pens – described by the advertising and marketing marketing campaign group as often “densely packed” – the salmon are unable to flee the stings, leaving them with excessive wounds and in “immense stress”.
Accidents akin to those render the salmon extraordinarily prone to an an infection and sickness that all the time ends in a sluggish and painful dying if left untreated.
In an announcement given to the media, the Inexperienced Britain Foundation has talked about the arrival of these jellyfish in Scottish waters “must sound alarm bells all via the salmon farming enterprise”, notably considering the devastation in Norway.