Thousands of Farmed Salmon Escape in Norway: €48 Reward per Captured Fish

dyrøy, norway - The world's largest salmon farming company offers a reward of €48 for each captured fish after 27,000 farmed salmon escape in Norway.

Mass Escape of Farmed Salmon

The largest salmon farming company, Mowi, is facing a crisis as 27,000 farmed salmon escape in Norway, offering a reward of €48 for each captured fish.

The incident took place in Dyrøy, a municipality above the Arctic Circle, where a recent storm damaged the outer ring of an underwater cage, allowing approximately a quarter of the 105,000 farmed salmon, each weighing an average of 5.5 kilograms, to escape.

The Norwegian government has expanded the fishing area for capturing the escaped salmon beyond the usual 500-meter radius around the facility due to the potential magnitude of the incident. Professional fishermen who capture any of the escaped salmon are eligible for a reward of 500 Norwegian kroner per fish from Mowi.

The escape of farmed salmon is considered an ecological disaster by environmental activists, as it leads to contamination of wild salmon with sea lice and a decrease in genetic diversity, affecting the long-term survival of the offspring in the open sea. The genetic influence of escaped farmed salmon has already impacted two-thirds of the wild Atlantic salmon population in Norway.

While Norway annually exports 1.2 million tons of farmed salmon, the number of wild salmon has reached a historic low. Fishing for salmon is now prohibited in 33 rivers, with calls to extend the ban to 42 rivers and three fjords.