Mowi enters partnership with Benthic Solutions Ltd for dedicated environmental surveying vessel

Mowi is delighted to announce a partnership with longstanding marine surveying partner, Benthic Solutions Ltd, to operate a dedicated environmental surveying vessel.

The vessel, known as the Benthic Surveyor, is equipped with specialist lifting equipment, positioning systems, seabed imaging and mapping capabilities and an onboard wet laboratory. The Benthic Surveyor is now permanently mobilised for Mowi’s benthic surveying operations, having commenced operations in mid-March.

The vessel’s home base will be Barra, a location where Mowi has a longstanding local presence, and will be skippered by Donald MacLeod, former coxswain of the Barra lifeboat, who was previously awarded an MBE in recognition of his voluntary work with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

Over the last few years, with the introduction of new regulatory monitoring requirements, we are now carrying out a significantly enhanced programme of benthic compliance surveys and this year anticipate undertaking 35 seabed surveys across our marine fish farms.

Speaking about the partnership, Ben Hadfield, Mowi’s Chief Operating Officer of Farming in Scotland, Ireland, The Faroes and Canada East, said: “Ensuring that we comply with our regulatory thresholds is essential. This not only demonstrates the sustainability of our farming operations in compliance with a wide range of aquaculture standards that we are certified against, but also provides clear provenance to our food for both suppliers and consumers.

“Seabed monitoring is an important, often unrecognised activity that is central to the success of the industry. It demonstrates that Mowi, and indeed the wider Scottish aquaculture industry, acts responsibly and sustainably. This cannot be underestimated at a time of enhanced scrutiny of the sector.”

Mowi’s marine surveying scientific team is led by Dave Young, a leading practitioner in this particular field, with 25 years of experience of monitoring the environments around our fish farms. Dave’s experience and knowledge in this vital area has been acknowledged by his nomination in the Unsung Hero category of this year’s Aquaculture Awards. Over 25 years Dave has undertaken 425 seabed compliance surveys (requiring close to 400 ferry journeys), which has cumulatively resulted in the acquisition of 6,500 environmental samples, producing in excess of 1,000 boxes of samples sent for laboratory analysis. Since 2016, Dave has also played an important role in the evolution of seabed compliance monitoring through the collection of environmental data sets that have informed the scientific development of eDNA as a compliance measurement method.

Ian Wilson from Benthic Solutions added: “We have supported Mowi in benthic environmental compliance assessments for over two decades. Dave’s diligence in supporting all of its field operations has been nothing short of remarkable, particularly considering the extensive logistics needed to cover all of the Western Isles and Highlands historically combined with having to mobilise and demobilise each survey and vessel from scratch. The introduction of the Benthic Surveyor as a dedicated survey vessel will significantly simplify these logistics and provide increased efficiency and safety for all field staff on future operations.”

The importance of monitoring the marine environment

Our ability to monitor and survey the marine environment to show how our operations interact is essential in allowing us to demonstrate the environmental sustainability of our farming locations.

There are many misconceptions on the environmental effects of fish farming, and monitoring allows us to provide a meaningful and accurate description of environmental effects and show how we can co-exist with the sensitive and important marine species and habitats that surround our fish farms.

We frequently go beyond our regulatory requirements, carrying out a range of proactive marine surveying using a variety of techniques including acquisition of underwater imagery from specialist underwater camera surveys or by using new and developing innovative technologies such as environmental DNA.