Marine pen fish farming: Charging changes

Requirement 

Gather evidence suitable for assessing and monitoring the status of salmonid populations in aquaculture areas. This must be aligned with existing and ongoing data collected in other parts of Scotland, to provide a comparative assessment of status suitable for inclusion in the River Basin Management Planning process. 

Scope 

Organising and planning surveys  

Designing schedule of monitoring (SEPA) 

• To cover a 3-year period, with annual review and amendment 

• Operational monitoring network to provide detail on individual catchment scale population impacts 

• Regional monitoring to provide annual assessment of trends across high and low risk lice sites 

• Monitoring sites included based on: 

• Existing data on stock assessment and pressures 

• Latest understanding of sea lice risk from modelling 

• Geographic coverage 

• GRTS survey design 

Writing statement of requirements and procuring services (SEPA) 

Arranging necessary permissions (Contractors) 

• Electrofishing licencing 

• Landowner permissions  

• Costs to be covered through procurement of 3rd party services, estimate £3k annually 

Delivering monitoring 

All electrofishing monitoring to be carried out to common standards, following National Electrofishing Programme for Scotland protocols. This will require a mixture of single and multi-pass sites. Provision should also be made for tissue collection for potential future genetic analysis of introgression and genetic stock identification baselining.  

Operational salmon monitoring  

This will have to be sufficient to deliver a robust assessment of the status and trends of juvenile salmon populations in wild salmon protection zones, and to establish whether any differences are associated with high and low sea lice risk assessments.  

Given the extent of the eight high risk wild salmon protection zones, and the number of salmon catchments across the west coast and western isles, we estimate that this will require at least 100 sites to be monitored annually, and 240 sites monitored on a 3-year rotating basis (i.e. 180 sites per year in total). This will maximise our understanding of spatial and temporal variability.  

Operational sea trout juvenile monitoring  

In additional to the above, specific monitoring will be required to assess the status and trends of juvenile trout populations in sea trout catchments which have a higher relative risk of sea lice pressure. This will include the Northern Isles, and sections of the west coast and Western Isles where sea trout are more common, or where local lice risks are high. We estimate that this will require an additional 50 annual sites, and 150 sites on a 3-year rotating basis (i.e. 100 sites per year in total).  

Other surveillance WFD fish monitoring in non-aquaculture or no risk areas is covered by existing SEPA charged resource. 

Managing and analysing data (SEPA) 

Create suitable storage for data and ensure data flows from monitoring programme. 

Analyse, visualise and interpret data. 

Expert advice providing by stakeholder groups especially the Scottish Government Marine Directorate. 

Reporting 

Annual reporting assumed to be required, with more regular updates where feasible.  

Creation and maintenance of a web-based reporting service, including spatial visualisation of data via Scotland Aquaculture website.  

Generate and publish WFD classification outputs.   

Generate NEPS outputs. 

Longer term review and innovation  

Incorporate model improvements for monitoring planning (SEPA and industry). 

Identify, progress and incorporate additional assessment methods (SEPA, industry, SG).  

• Work in partnership with other bodies to develop index river approach to examine marine survival (tagging and trapping based studies). 

• Analyse salmon post-smolt tracking information and identify requirements for future studies to improve assessment of salmon risk (SEPA).