Scandal in Norway: Birdlife rejects municipal permit allowing cormorants to be killed at salmon farm

Centro Ecocéanos of Chile stated that it is eager to see how Norway will resolve this situation of interaction between a protected seabird species and the salmon industry, as well as the precedent that will be set and its implications for Chile in the current context of potential market measures related to the implementation of the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Santiago, Chile, February 09, 2022 (Ecoceanos News)– Increasing and controversial interactions between bird and marine mammal populations and industrial salmon farms are provoking public opposition in the two main producing and exporting countries: Norway and Chile.

This time it is the renowned nature conservation organization Birdlife Norway that opposes the highly controversial permit issued by the municipality of Masfjorden (Norway) to the salmon farming company Engesund Fiskeoppdrett to shoot cormorants that penetrate bird protection nets. «There are often injured salmon smolts that die from bites while thousands of others swim around stressed and frightened,» says the company’s fish farming manager, Svein Eivind Gilje, who describes this as a growing problem for the smolt cages as justification for the salmon company’s successful application for a sui generis permit to kill cormorants at its Laberget salmon farm in Masfjorden.

The Secretary General of Birdlife Norway (formerly the Norwegian Ornithological Society), Kjetil Aadne Solbakken, expressed his outrage and stated that salmon farming companies should not be allowed to shoot cormorants, as this species is on the Red List in the «near threatened» category.

Centro Ecocéanos:How Norway will resolve the interactions between protected seabirds and the salmon industry?

Centro Ecocéanos of Chile stated that it is «eager to see how Norway will resolve this situation of interaction between a protected seabird species and the salmon industry, as well as the precedent that will be set and its implications for Chile -the other major farmed salmon producer and exporter with a significant Norwegian investment presence -in the current context of potential market measures related to implementation of the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act.