THE Save Our Sea trout campaign group has rejected claims that sea lice and sea trout are living in harmony. It insisted that a huge increase in infestation levels on the fish in Irish waters had not been addressed.
The SOS chairman, Dr Graham Shaw, was commenting on a paper delivered by the Galway research company Aquafact lnternational to the Environmental Researchers Colloquium in UCD on the ecology of sea lice and the trout.
He noted also that the work had been funded by the salmon farming industry and that subsequently the Irish Salmon Growers' Association had issued a statement which emphasised a "perfect relationship" between the two and denied any role for salmon farms in the infestation process.
"It does nothing to explain the huge increase in infestation [of sea trout by lice], accompanied by premature return of sea trout to fresh water, and the sea trout population collapse which has occurred in virtually every sea trout river within 20 kilometres of a salmon farm and in no ether location," Dr Shaw said.
Based on several years' scientific investigation, it was current practice to monitor lice levels on salmon farms and to seek a reduction of heavy infestation that was invariably associated with such farms. In addition, since 1994 lice control on the farms by the use of a combination of fallowing and chemical treatment had resulted in sea trout recovery, he added.
Good control over several years will, of course, be necessary if the worst affected areas are to return to their former glory. Where lice control fails, heavy lice infestation on sea trout immediately reappears. SOS therefore calls on salmon growers to devote all their energy to solving their infestation problem."