‘Already too many salmon farms in Bantry’

An organisation opposed to the development of another salmon farm in Bantry Bay says the area is “already overburdened” with them and believes there’s a direct link between such farms and sea lice infestation which can kill wild fish.

Save Bantry Bay secretary, Alec O’Donovan, made his organisation’s concerns known on day two of a reconvened oral hearing into a decision by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine to grant a licence for Marine Harvest for a salmon farm at Shot Head.

“Sea lice was recognised in the 1980s as being a problem for sea trout and salmon smolts on the rivers of the west of Ireland. Strangely enough this decline of sea trout occurred shortly after the commencing of salmon farming on the west coast in 1984,” Mr O’Donovan said.