Gathering for fish health
Fish Health Observer training at Mowi’s land-based recirculating aquaculture system
Mowi’s fish health team has recently been bolstered by the recruitment of fish health observers (FHO) throughout all farming locations that oversee fish health and welfare; that includes cleaner fish deployment, welfare monitoring, biosecurity, vaccine auditing and many other important activities along the production cycle.
To further support the new team, the company is developing training opportunities for all FHO and any other staff on site interested to share good practice, learn from our successes, address challenges and innovate to promote welfare and prevent disease. Over the past two months, the health team has engaged in training events with all freshwater and seawater sites across the west coast of Scotland. These workshops have fostered sharing knowledge and exchanging ideas and new strategies in development as well as practical sessions on farms to demonstrate fish health monitoring.
The most recent session was held in Fort William and brought together the company’s FHO, site managers and assistant managers, freshwater managers, and environment team, as well as a colleague from Mowi Norway and Professor Pieter Van West from Aberdeen University. The gathering highlighted the practices and performance of Mowi Scotland’s freshwater operations and health strategies, with Norway presenting insights into similar challenges in the Norwegian sector and fish osmoregulation.
Daniel Phillips, Freshwater Manager, presents in Fort William
After the meeting, the group visited one of Mowi’s land-based hatchery and smolt units where FHO were provided hands-on training in health monitoring techniques.
On the importance of these events, Herve Migaud, Mowi Scotland’s Fish Health and Welfare Director, comments: “Sharing best practice and training is critical to the continuous improvement of fish health and welfare, and meeting face to face really makes a difference. We are looking forward to hosting follow-up events this year which will include a cleaner fish training event in our Welsh facilities.”
