Cleaner fish welfare on Scotland’s salmon farms - 2018

Cleaner fish (lumpsuckers and wrasse species) are used by the salmon farming industry in Scotland to eat sea lice from salmon, as an alternative to chemical and mechanical treatments for sea lice. In 2016, 1.5 million farmed cleaner fish were used on salmon farms in Scotland, it was predicted to rise to 10 million individuals used in the UK in 2020.

Despite this there are numerous welfare problems that can affect cleaner fish, including: the need to provide supplementary food and shelter, negative interactions with other fish, escapes, personality variation meaning that not all “cleaner fish” will perform a cleaning role on salmon farms, health problems and high mortality rates.

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