Two aquaculture companies in Norway reported fish escapes in late December 2023 and early January 2024, per the Norway Directorate of Fisheries.
The first escape incident, which took place on 29 December 2023, occurred at Hardanger Seafood’s Langevågen location, which is south of Bømlo, Norway. That escape, the directorate said, occurred at a slaughterhouse and involved farmed salmon between 4 and 5 kilograms in size.
The Directorate of Fisheries said it looked into the potential incident after it received several tips about catches of escaped farmed salmon in the area by local anglers. The company responded by placing recapture nets and, as of 3 January, had caught 38 escaped farmed fish.
The directorate said it plans to follow up on the incident through further supervision, and it also asked anglers who may have caught fish to report them with photos.
The second escape incident occurred on 4 January 2024. A Lerøy facility reported escaped rainbow trout at its Kelvesteinen site – located east of the island of Sotra in Norway – to the Norway Directorate of Fisheries. The fish that escaped in the incident, according to the company, are between 2 and 3 kilograms in size.
The company has, like Hardanger, set out recapture nets and, as of the evening of 4 January, had caught 23 farmed fish. The directorate said it plans to similarly follow up on the incident and is once again asking any anglers who catch any farmed fish to report them.
Additionally, Lerøy recently posted an operational update that relayed it faced biological challenges in Q4 2023, including challenges with jellyfish impacting production and early harvests at some sites.
Photo courtesy of H2 Hardanger
