News / Bad luck strikes twice for salmon farm
BAD luck has struck a Shetland salmon company for the second time in three months after four salmon cages went missing in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The white fish trawler Fairway was towing eight salmon cages overnight from the Lakeland Unst site in Bluemull Sound, off the island of Unst, where they were being decommissioned.
They were heading for Olnafirth on Shetland’s west coast where the steel cages were due to be broken up for scrap by Josie Manson.
However at 7.45am Fairway skipper Colin Hughson called Shetland coastguard to say that four of the eight cages had disappeared.
Mr Hughson told them that the cages had all been present and correct at 1.30am, but at first light they had halved in number.
The skipper said that they had waited days for good weather to carry out the tow. Though there had been a brisk north easterly with snow showers, he did not think the sea conditions had caused the incident.
“We were waiting all week to get good weather and we thought it was going to be alright. It was fine, there was nothing wrong with the weather when it happened,” he said
On Tuesday morning the coastguard said they had received reports of salmon cages being washed up on the west side of Yell Sound north of Collafirth.
A coastguard spokesman said they were monitoring the cages and waiting for the company to come up with a plan to retrieve them.
Mark Warrington, managing director of parent company Meridian salmon Group, said he was working with Lakeland Unst manager Dennis Johnson to deal with the situation and that it should be “reasonably straightforward”.
This is the second time Meridian Salmon Group has lost salmon cages in the past few months.
During 100mph gales on Christmas Day 12 cages belonging to Lakeland Unst were washed out into the North Sea and it took three weeks to recover eight of them 60 miles off Shetland, while the other four sank.
Those cages contained 300,000 fully grown salmon and it is estimated the company lost £3 million as a result of the incident.
Mr Hughson said the crew of the Fairway, which is based on the isle of Skerries, were glad of the towing work as they were only able to fish for 90 days during 2011 under the latest quota restrictions.
“If it wasn’t for this kind of thing and oil work we would not be able to manage,” he said.
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