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NewsletterScotland's Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse praised Marine Harvest's large-scale investment in the new unit.
The Atlantic Salmon Trust
Working for wild salmon and sea trout in all their habitats - Ocean, coastal and fresh water
Reducing threats to survival and maximising abundance
Scottish Environment Minister visits state of the art smolt unit
The new unit, at Lochailort, is being built by Marine Harvest, and is due to be completed next year.
Once completed the development will be one of the biggest facilities of its kind in the world. It uses recirculation principles, and means that the farmed fish are completely contained.
AST is keen to see all farmed smolts raised in such facilities, and is continuing the policy pursued over many years by other organisations such as the Sea Trout Group, which campaigned long and hard to ensure that the Aquaculture Stewardship Council standard for farmed salmon would not offer accreditation to smolts raised in open net pens in freshwater systems in countries with wild salmon and sea trout populations.
"Our policy is to support a move towards closed containment of all farmed salmon up to the smolt stage," said AST Chief Executive Tony Andrews. "Growing farm stock to this stage in recirculation units is a tried and tested use of technology. There is no excuse in the 21st century for continuing to grow farmed salmon in open net pens in freshwater lochs which are part of salmonid systems. It doesn't happen elsewhere, and it shouldn't happen here. We are very glad to see that a leading company such as Marine Harvest is starting to invest in susainable methods of growing fish to smolting."