Three Faroe Islanders held a presentation at the international conference ‘International Cleaner Fish Summit,’ which was held at Glasgow in May. The aim of the conference was to shine a light on production and use of cleaner fish in the aquaculture industry.
One of the conclusions at the conference was that in many areas the use of cleaner fish in the aquaculture industry is still in its infancy, and there is therefore a need for companies and institutions to communicate and cooperate in this area. Even across borders.
The purpose of cleaner fish is to avoid problems with lice and thereby to avoid the necessity of treating the salmon for lice.
Cleaner fish are types of fish that are used for consuming lice off salmon, and on the Faroe Islands lumpfish are used for this purpose. Elsewhere other kinds of cleaner fish are also used, for instance wrasses. The reason that we exclusively use lumpfish on the Faroe Islands is that this fish lives in the Faroese fjords, while wrasses are not present here.
About 200 people from five countries in the North Atlantic – the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Scotland, and Ireland – attended the conference. A representative from each of the participating countries described the cleaner fish situation in their respective country with a focus on production and use of cleaner fish in the aquaculture industry. This role on behalf of the Faroe Islands was filled by Kirstin Eliasen, coordinator and researcher at Fiskaaling.
Despite the challenges in the various areas, the joint conclusion of the participating countries was, that the mortality of cleaner fish is still far too high, and that therefore there is a lot of room for improvement.
In addition to Kirstin Eliasan from Fiskaaling; Peter Østergaard from Aquamed and Esbern Patursson from Luna also held presentations at the conference.
The conference, which was the first of its kind, is expected to become an annually recurring event.
Should anyone wish to learn more about this, they are welcome to call Kirstin Eliasan at tel. no. +298 774703
