Cleaner fish
Lumpfish need love too Lumpfish and Ballan wrasse have their own welfare issues, which should not be ignored
F
ish species such as lumpfish and Ballan wrasse, are increasingly being used as cleaner fish to help control the numbers of sea lice in salmon and trout pens. Of course, the cleaner fish themselves also have welfare issues. They cannot survive on sea lice alone, and can suffer high rates of mortality when simply placed in a salmon pen without a proper feeding and welfare regime. Clearly, tackling one welfare (and ethical) challenge is not helpful if it simply creates another problem. Harves�ng wild wrasse and lumpfish for this purpose also depletes fish stocks, so these species are now also being farmed. Unlike salmon, for
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example, which have been domes�cated for 50 years, lumpfish and wrasse have been farmed for a much shorter �me and there are s�ll gaps in the industry’s knowledge about them. A group of researchers at Swansea University, including Professor Carlos Garcia de Leaniz, Chair in Aqua�c Sciences and Biosciences, drew on the exper�se and experience of par�cipants from the fish farming sector, animal welfare, academia and regulators to assess consensus on the main
Above: Lumpfish
www.fishfarmermagazine.com
09/08/2021 15:20:12
