A large swarm of jellyfish has killed massive numbers of young salmon at a Western Isles fish farm.
Some 300,000 healthy salmon worth an estimated £1 million died as a result, said the fish farm.
Tiny, pelagia noctiluca jellyfish squeezed through the nets surrounding the Loch Duart fish farm in Loch Maddy, North Uist.
The jellyfish -
Many injured, exhausted salmon survived only to perish when cold, south easterly gales blew up.
Nick Joy, managing director of Loch Duart said: “Around 300,000 of our wonderful young salmon have died due to this event.”
“My immediate view was that though the fish had been sorely tried, the majority of them would survive as long as the weather gave them some peace to rest.”
Jellyfish attack kills hundreds of thousands of salmon
15 December 2014
But a cold south easterly gale at the end of November killed off the survivors.
Mr Joy said: “The poor fish unable to swim well were trapped against the net and a very significant number died.
“We have now removed almost all of the dead fish and only about half remain.”
Mr Joy said it was a “terrible blow” impact but the company’s survival is “not in jeopardy.”
“We will surmount this new challenge and move on. Our company has adapted to many challenges in its existence since 1999 when it was formed.”
Mr Joy said farm workers were devastated” by the event.
He said salmon farmer David Maciver and his team in Loch Maddy had to watch the fish they nurtured over the past 12 months to be destroyed by the jellyfish.
Mr Joy said: “Salmon farming is a hard, dangerous job and in our company it requires the highest level of empathy with the fish that we grow.”
He added: “The removal of large numbers of dead fish is a soul destroying and depressing task, especially if you have tended and cared for the fish that died.”
Loch Duart is an independent Scottish salmon farm which produces around 5,000 tonnes of salmon annually.
It employs about 100 people in the Uist area of the Western Isles and also in Sutherland. The salmon is sold to leading restaurants and retailers at home and abroad.
Shoals of the mauve stinger decimated Northern Ireland's only salmon farm in 2007. Over 100,000 fish worth an estimated £1 million were destroyed at the farm off Glenarm Bay.
In 2002, a thick blanket of jellyfish -