A tear in a net pen containing 129,000 salmon has led to the escape of a yet-unknown number of fish at a Grieg Seafood site in Vannfjorden in the Nordkapp municipality in northern Norway.
The fish had an average weight of 4.6 kg, of which 17 have been captured so far. The company said it will know the actual number of escapees when harvest commences in the fall.
The salmon producer discovered the tear at the bottom of the groove, 31 meters deep, on Tuesday, September 13. It has notified the Directorate of Fisheries, set out recapture nets and closed the hole.
“Based on what we know as of now, the tear has occurred due to damage to the dead fish net, which has caused the seine to become hooked. The Directorate of Fisheries will investigate the incident and the cause in more detail,” the company announced on the day the incident occurred.
“We must get to the bottom of what has happened, learn from it and improve our procedures. Fortunately, the number of escape incidents has decreased significantly in recent years after a lot of hard work, but today shows that we still have to improve in this area,” said Vidar Aamo Nikolaisen, regional director of Grieg Seafood Finnmark.
