Australian grower Tassal, the country’s largest salmon-farmer, lost three percent of its biomass at its Okehampton Bay grow-out operation during a December mortality event in Eastern Tazmania, ABC.net has reported.
The loss of some 30,000 of 800,000 fish was reportedly described by the company as “well within what they expect or plan for”, the news service reported. Okehampton Bay is the company’s newest farming operation, and in a statement the company said “human error” caused the event but that otherwise there were no biological issues at the site.
“There was a minor, one-off mortality issue in December just before Christmas during the standard bathing operation as a result of human error that was resolved immediately,” the statement said. It also said good conditions prevailed at the site, including normal temperatures for the Australian summer.
ABC, which had seen emails between the Environmental Protection Agency and Tassal, reported that the company had forecast an “83-percent” survival rate for the site after the event, but that Okehampton was doing better than that.
