On Saturday 27 August, Øyvind Stuvik paddles his usual kayak between the islands west of Sotra. He is the manager of the company Fjordexpedition, which runs guided tours in Øygarden. At Syltøyna west of Møvik, the kayak party passes a cage where fishermen have placed a mackerel catch in a so-called “lock” or “steng”. – We saw that a few of the fish were sick, says Stuvik to news. Locking is a common way of storing live wild fish before it is transported to a fish reception facility. But when Stuvik and a traveling party pass by the town again five days later, what they see in the cage is not normal. A kayaking group discovered what they call a hair-raising amount of injured mackerel in this cage. Photo: Øyvind Stuvik The tip: – Hair-raising Many of the fish you see at the top of the lake are full of wounds. Stuvik takes a short video of fish in the cage, both above and below sea level. It seems that the majority of the fish in the film have white or red sores on their backs, sides or snouts. He and the other guide decide to report to both the Directorate of Fisheries and the Norwegian Environment Protection Association the next day. – I don’t want to create a sour atmosphere for the fishermen in the area. It is not certain that they did it on purpose. It is not usual to check underwater with a gopro camera. He emphasizes that the tour group focused on not destroying anything or touching anything. Øyvind Stuvik resigned after seeing that the mackerel looked increasingly worse. Photo: Private Veterinarian: – Infectious diseases The Directorate of Fisheries received the video and the warning. news also got it, and showed the video to veterinarian Åse Helen Garseth. She is responsible for wild fish health at the Veterinary Institute. – This is a sad picture that shows extensive damage to almost all fish. It looks like some people have a bacterial or fungal infection in their skin, commented Garseth. – When the mackerel are trapped like here, they can brush themselves against ropes or the like. Then they can lose their shells and protective mucus layer and thus become more susceptible to infections. Garseth said that from the video it was difficult to say why this has happened. – But it looks like this is not about natural causes, but the way the fish is kept there. This is a matter for the Norwegian Food Safety Authority, she said. Åse Helen Garseth at the Veterinary Institute believes that the Norwegian Food Safety Authority must consider this case. Photo: Eivind Røhne The fisherman: – A bit of a rough ride On behalf of the directorate, the coast guard ship “KV Tor” went out and checked the cage the next day. – We were notified that the rod had fish that had started to get in quite a bad condition. The Coast Guard and I contacted the owner, who met “KV Tor” in the city on Saturday morning. That’s according to section manager Roger Aasarmoen in the control section of the Directorate of Fisheries, region west. The whole thing even with the fact that 11 tonnes of fish had to be slaughtered because of the damage. The video shows many fish with extensive damage. Photo: Øyvind Stuvik The owner of this mackerel catch is fisherman Jakob Magnar Jakobsen from Sotra. He tells news that the catch had been in the net for three or four days when the well boat was supposed to transport the fish to the reception. But the well boat could not come, because the cooling system on board broke down. – By then I had already started to push the cage together, so that the fish has less space before it is pumped into the well boat. But then it was cut short due to the accident. A part of the fish had then gotten a bit too fast, says Jakobsen to news. He emphasizes that the situation looks worst at sea level. – Just below the surface, it is easy to see fish with clear red wounds in their skin, but it is the injured fish that swim high. Most of the fish are unharmed and stay further down in the cage, says Jakobsen. Both the fisherman and the directorate say that the injured fish swims closest to the surface and is not representative of the entire catch. Photo: Øyvind Stuvik 11 tonnes turned into oil After the Coast Guard checked the cage, Jakobsen got the fish shipped the same day. None of the catch could be used for human food. – It did not have the quality needed to become a food fish, says Aasarmoen in the Directorate of Fisheries. All 11 tonnes were transported to the herring oil factory in Måløy to become fish oil or fish meal, i.e. mostly used for fish and animal feed. This corresponds to at least 20,000 dinner portions of mackerel. – This catch could not be used for food fish. Even if only something was damaged, it was not appropriate to separate healthy from damaged fish, explains both Aasarmoen in the directorate and the fisherman himself. The mackerel as it looked on 27 August. Photo: Øyvind Stuvik No time limit According to Jakobsen, the mackerel stayed in the cage for a total of one week, i.e. since the kayakers first observed the fence. – Did you know about the injured fish? – Yes, I had planned to take it up when it fit into the operating plan I had. The fish can usually stay for 3-4 weeks if it has received good treatment on the way into the cage. But not in this case with a lot of wounded fish and some dead fish, says Jakobsen. He is critical of the fact that kayak paddlers have been close to the cage. – I do not rule out the fact that it further contributes to stressing the fish, something that may have resulted in more injured fish. Aasarmoen in the Directorate of Fisheries confirms that there is no deadline for how long live fish can be “locked”. – Should it be considered setting a limit? – To the extent that something goes wrong, one can always say that the regulations do not handle all situations. Incidents like this rarely happen. But we will consider whether this matter should be included in relation to any changes to the rules, he says. On 1 September, the deadline for giving input to a new report to the Storting on animal welfare expired. The proposal from the government states, among other things, that “live storage of wild fish should be discussed in the further work on this report”. During the hectic fishing period, it is common to store a mackerel catch in a “lock” before it is transported to the fish reception. The picture does not show the cage in question. Photo: Valentina Baisotti / news Considers reaction, but “removes evidence” The Coast Guard already announced on Saturday that they believe nothing criminal has happened in the case. But the Directorate of Fisheries is now investigating the matter further. – It is too early to say anything definitively whether there has been a breach of law or regulations and whether guilt can possibly be established. But the directorate did not secure documentation of how much of the fish was actually injured. – No, we did not follow the fish to delivery to the herring oil factory, and cannot say the exact state of health of all that fish. – So the evidence about the state of health of the fish is now gone? – Yes, it’s awake, the only thing I have are the gopro video clips from the surface, but the fish down in the cage usually have much better quality, says Aasarmoen.
ttn-69
11 tonnes of mackerel destroyed as food fish at Sotra – news Vestland
