“The proposal for a database, bringing together information from a variety of partner bodies, was made around two and a half years ago by the then head of the Marine Scotland Aquaculture Unit,” stated the leaked report.  “Since then, a great deal of work has been done in developing the proposal, comparing and cleansing data, designing the website etc.”  “Policy, data cleansing/sharing arrangements and database and website development have now been taken to the stage where.....the database/website will be rolled out to partner bodies later in July; we aim to launch it publicly at the end of July,” continued the report [2]. 
 
“This ham-fisted attempt to greenwash the Scottish salmon farming industry is hogwash,” said Don Staniford of the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture.  “Thanks to FishyLeaks the public can now see for themselves the disease-ridden and lethal nature of Scotland’s filthy feedlots.  All the ‘data cleansing’ in the world does not alter the fact that salmon farming is a dirty rotten industry.  Even cleaning queens Kim and Aggie cannot clean crap off crap!”
 
FishyLeaks reveals: 
 
- A 'mort mountain' of nearly 7 million farmed salmon in 2011 with over 2 million morts in the first three months of 2012 
 
- 700,000 morts in Orkney alone during March 2012 with 194,905 at one site (Bay of Vady) operated by Meridian
 
- Over a quarter of a million farmed salmon (267,114) with a weight of 291,056 kg died during October 2011 at the Scottish Salmon Company’s site at St. Molios on the Isle of Arran
 
- Infectious diseases including: Infectious Salmon Anaemia, Ichthyobodo, Vibrio, Cardiomyopathy, Moritella vicosa, Yersinia ruckeri, Epitheliocystis, Salmonid alphavirus, Nephrocalcinosis, Tenacibaculum maritumum, Exophiala, Pasteurella skyensis, Nocardia, Pseudomonas, Flavobacterium, Gyrodactylus derjavinoides and Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis
 
- The use of the toxic chemicals Deltamethrin, Azamethiphos, Teflubenzuron and Emamectin benzoate by companies including Marine Harvest, Hjaltland (Grieg), Scottish Salmon Company, Scottish Seafarms and Loch Duart  

The Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture (GAAIA) filed a FOI request on 1^st July demanding access to all the documents relating to ‘Scotland’s Aquaculture Database’ as well as any data that has been deleted.  SEPA and Marine Scotland are now seeking to narrow down the scope of the FOI request.  “There is no database cleansing as part of the Aquaculture Database project, if by that is meant changes to or transformation of data, either at source or in the Aquaculture Database, for the purposes of the project,” wrote SEPA on 12^th July (read the letter in full online here).    
 
Earlier this month, The Sunday Herald revealed that salmon farming companies are refusing to send vital data to Scottish Government scientists, to avoid it being released under FOI law.  In one email made available to journalist Rob Edwards, Norwegian-owned Marine Harvest said that releasing the information “could result in misrepresentation of the facts which would of course be damaging to our commercial interests as a company.”  “It seems odd to go about deliberately destroying valuable and possibly contentious biological data, unless you were worried about having to disclose it under freedom of information,” said solicitor Guy Linley-Adams of the Salmon & Trout Association.   
 
Shocking data obtained by GAAIA via FOI in June also revealed that salmon farming companies have killed over 300 seals in Scotland alone since the start of 2011.  ‘Farmed Salmon Exposed’ and The Salmon Farm Protest Group have also published damning data on toxic chemicals, diseases, escapes and mortalities.  A WWF Report – “Scotland’s Secret?” – also lifted the lid on the full extent of nutrient pollution from salmon farms in Scotland. 
 
“The salmon farming industry is Scotland’s dirty little secret,” continued Staniford (an award-winning campaigner and author).  “Instead of cleaning up the image of this foreign-owned industry, the Scottish Government should be cleaning up chemical pollution, infectious diseases and dead seals.  That the Government is now gearing up to launch a PR campaign targeting impressionable schoolchildren is scraping the bottom of the barrel and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth just like Scotland’s Norwegian-flavoured farmed salmon.” 
 
Following a trade junket to Norway in May (when Marine Harvest announced a £80 million five-year plan for Scottish expansion), Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond shamefully described the predominantly Norwegian-owned salmon farming industry as “the essence of Scotland”.   Last year, Scotland signed a trade deal with China signalling a “recklessly irresponsible” doubling of Scottish farmed salmon production.  Meanwhile, China has imposed restrictions on Norwegian farmed salmon which are “rotting in Chinese warehouses”.      
 

Notes to Editors
 
[1] A June 2012 briefing document - ‘Scotland’s Aquaculture Database’ (MSF 85/2012) - from Scotland’s ‘Marine Strategy Forum’ was leaked to GAAIA.  Read the document in full online here
 
[2]  According to Wikipedia: “Data cleansing, data cleaning, or data scrubbing is the process of detecting and correcting (or removing) corrupt or inaccurate records from a record set, table, or database.  Used mainly in databases, the term refers to identifying incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate, irrelevant, etc. parts of the data and then replacing, modifying, or deleting this dirty data.”