As New Zealand King Salmon’s auditors and designers were putting the finishing touches on their annual report, the Australian Government was rushing through legislation to protect its own salmon industry.

The Tasmanian salmon farming industry, worth over $1 billion annually, has come under increasing scrutiny from environmental groups, politicians and even Leonardo DiCaprio.

Mass fish mortality events have seen blobs of salmon fat washing up in Macquarie Bay, on the island’s west coast.

Waste facilities in Tasmania reportedly received more than 5,500 tonnes of dead salmon in February. More than a million fish are understood to have died.

The treatment of dying fish saw the SPCA suspend certification for one salmon farmer.

These mass mortalities have grabbed headlines all around Australia, but it’s the fate of an endangered skate (a species similar in appearance to a stingray) found only in Macquarie Bay that has drawn the most ire from environmental activists.

Low oxygen levels and other human interference related to salmon farming are endangering the species.

Earlier this week the Labor Government passed laws protecting salmon farming in the harbour, axing the environment minister’s inquiry into whether an expansion of fish farming in the harbour in 2012 was properly approved. The reconsideration was the result of a legal request from three environmental groups.

New Zealand King Salmon chief executive Carl Carrington told Newsroom the company had a working relationship with the Australian companies and had a close eye on what was happening over there, saying the mortality events were “tragic for them” and the situation presented real social licence challenges.

He said social licence issues were “absolutely critical” for the company, which recently received Government investment up to $11.7m towards developing open ocean aquaculture.

He said the company had common ground with iwi and environmental groups as a healthy marine ecosystem was critical for having healthy fish, “The last thing we want to do is anything to contribute to the degradation of the marine environment”.

“Unfortunately, there will always be special interest groups who want to use the resource management act or anything they can to try and just shut down salmon farming for whatever reason, whether it’s that they don’t want it in their backyard or they fundamentally believe we shouldn’t be growing protein.”

Those special interest groups include animal rights organisations concerned about King Salmon’s own track record of mass mortality events and environmental groups concerned about the impact of aquaculture in the Marlborough Sounds.

If social licence is so critical to the industry, should increased scrutiny of the sector be welcomed?

“Well, it depends on whether it’s well-informed scrutiny and what their objectives are. I guess I can leave it there,” Carrington said.

He added that King Salmon’s Blue Endeavour open ocean farm was the world’s most highly conditioned and consented farm.

New Zealand King Salmon currently sells about 11 percent of its product into Australia, and while the industry across the Tasman is suffering from an image issue, it doesn’t plan on trying to maximise the opportunity.

Carrington would rather compete on quality, pitching its king salmon as a more premium product than the Atlantic salmon grown in Tasmania, “We don’t need to take advantage of anyone else’s misfortune.”

Carrington acknowledged some consumers were looking to alternatives to the Tasmanian supply, but said such events weren’t impossible for his own company.

“We ourselves aren’t immune from elevated mortality events, we had our own disaster not so very long ago.

“It’s not the pot calling the kettle black.”

Carrington is referring to mass mortality events caused by warm water in 2022 that severely impacted its operations.

After a marine heatwave killed 40 percent of the stock in its Marlborough Sounds farms, King Salmon had to send 1,300 tonnes of fish waste to local dumps.

And while the company is investing in open ocean farming to minimise the risk of marine heatwaves, Carrington says future mass mortality events are possible.

“They’re having their challenges right now and that’s not to say we wouldn’t potentially have challenges in the future. We just don’t know.”

Just a few weeks ago, the company announced it was experiencing higher than expected sea farm mortality, coupled with lower than anticipated growth rates at a level that would impact harvest volumes for the current financial year.

It didn’t give specifics, but the announcement said mortality levels are significantly lower than what occurred during the last major mortality event.

New Zealand King Salmon doesn’t share exact fish mortality numbers. Screenshot: NZKS

The company keeps its mortality rates under wraps. Graphs in its annual report show trends, but omit any scale from the Y axis.

Asked for more details, Carrington told Newsroom it was commercially sensitive information, with numbers deliberately left out.

He said water temperatures had been similar to the 2022 mass death, and the lowered level of mortality was evidence of work done to build a more resilient stock. He said breeding efforts could improve temperature tolerance by as much as 0.4 degrees Celsius every generation.

“It’s not the start to the year we would have liked,” Carrington said.

Death and slower growth rates from warm water over summer led to a higher level of uncertainty over its expected earnings for the current year, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (a common measure of financial performance) forecast to be between $15 million and $24 million.

While the Australian law was aimed at giving more certainty to the owners and employees of the Salmon industry, there is plenty of concern it could result in an inability to challenge environmental decisions across mining, land clearing and gas exploration.

The Australian Government describe the law as a small amendment to address a flaw, but said existing laws applied to everything else.

Eloise Carr, a director of The Australia Institute thinktank, said it had ramifications for all industries covered by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and could stop anyone from reviewing existing projects.

And according to Equity Generation Lawyers principal lawyer David Barnden, the law might not even function.

“The bill is so poorly drafted that it risks not even applying to the salmon industry in Macquarie Harbour. Legal challenges are almost guaranteed.”

Source - https://newsroom.co.nz