Environmental activists used small fishing boats to halt Tassal’s vessel, ‘Aqua Spa’, on Tuesday.
The vessel was prevent from mooring alongside 16 empty salmon open net pen cages in Long Bay, which it was reportedly set to place live juvenile salmon into.
“Today’s resistance is because Tassal refuses to listen to the community. With IMAS reports confirming the damage this toxic industry does, along with seeing it with our own eyes, neither Tassal nor the Government has done anything to address community concerns. So, they have left us no choice but to defend this beautiful pace ourselves,” Alistair Allan from the Bob Brown Foundation said.
The action comes after protestors demanded the removal of Tassal’s salmon farm in Long Bay, Port Arthur in Tasmania over a study that linked the pens to harmful algal blooms.
Read more: Call for removal of Tassal salmon farm intensifies after study links it to algal blooms
Tasmania’s Environment Protection Authority has been monitoring water quality in the Port Arthur area since December 2019. “Nitrogen isotope data demonstrates that the farm is a nutrient source for macro algae communities at the sites directly adjacent to the lease,” concluded the newly released report.
“Unless this industry starts to get out of Tasmania’s waters, the Bob Brown Foundation will meet the toxic salmon head on. These community pushbacks will only grow,” the Bob Brown Foundation warned.
SalmonBusiness has reached out to Tassal for comment.
