Missing fish claims disputed

Your article ‘Simon Coveney: Weather delayed collection of fish’ highlights the culture of obstruction, denial and disdain that Government authorities display when any organisation questions their ‘voice of authority’.

Just as with the recent controversies in the Department of Justice and Garda Síochána, those opposed to salmon farming have been dismissed and disregarded when attempting to draw the public’s attention to Ireland’s largest ever escape of farmed salmon.

The entire event has been virtually ignored for two months, and now finally it has been acknowledged misinformation is being spun.

For the Marine Institute, Minister Coveney and the Irish Farmers’ Association to claim that 230,000 salmon have ‘disintegrated’ and ‘dispersed’ in the space of a couple of weeks is ludicrous. I am a third generation lobster potter and know that at these water temperatures a single fish used as bait in a salmon pot can survive for this time and longer.

A well boat designed to gather salmon from cages visited the site of the escape on February 18 just over two weeks after the event. Not one fish was retrieved, indicating nets were empty.

Meanwhile, no sightings of dead salmon floating on the surface or washing up on shores were reported either. With a quarter of a million dead fish missing you’d expect to see a few.

There is not one piece of evidence suggesting these fish died. All we know are 230,000 fish are no longer in the salmon farm, nor the vicinity.

Until these figures of authority have the evidence to back up their claims, they must stop making such unsubstantiated claims.

Kieran O’Shea Chairman

Save Bantry Bay

Adrigole

Co Cork