Lerøy commissions escaped fish count

The Lerøy Seafood group is taking a number of measures to study the impact of fish escapes in various rivers in Norway.

The move follows the closure of sports fishing activities at more than 30 of the country’s rivers last week and a serious escape incident at one of Lerøy’s own fish farms in the past few weeks.

Lerøy said it had decided to take extra responsibility following the sports fishing ban and one way to do that was to try to reduce the consequences of escapes.

It has now commissioned the organisation Scandinavia Nature Monitoring to carry out surveys around several rivers which were closed last week.

Harald Larssen, General Manager of Lerøy Midt, said: “The new measures and the extended monitoring show that we take responsibility for minimising the consequences of the escape.

“By conducting drift counts in several rivers, we are able to gain a better understanding of the situation and this enables us to act accordingly. “

He added: “This is an important step to ensure that we do everything we can to minimise the consequences. In connection with the investigations, measures are taken to remove observed farmed fish.”

Lerøy has also asked the Norwegian Institute for Natural Research to carry out an analysis of 18 rivers in the Trøndelag and Møre and Romsdal areas where fishing is still permitted.

This move, it says, should be able to provide updated knowledge about the spread of farmed fish and information about the wild fish in these rivers.