Pardon, what’s sucking them up?!

You’ve been trapped in a crowded room for weeks. People are stressed, deadly diseases are starting to spread, you’re utterly miserable. 

Then, just as you think things can’t get any worse, a hand yanks you from your prison and you’re shoved into a small box…

There’s water rising all around you. Rising, rising, until you can barely breathe.

Panic grips you as you realise, you can’t escape. You’re trapped.

You scream, but no-one is listening. You thrash against the walls, but no-one sees you. You fight for your life, but you realise that no-one is coming to save you. 

For us, this is just a terrifying nightmare. 

For others, it is their fate.

For fish, our air is their water — their lifeline.

To forcibly pull them from the sea and suspend them in the air is to choke them, much like drowning a human in water.

It’s nothing short of blatant torture.

At Loch Linnhe in Scotland, whistleblowers captured this horror on camera at a salmon farm owned by Mowi, the world’s largest salmon producer.

On three separate days, footage showed live salmon trapped in cages in the air. They can be seen frantically struggling against the metal bars of a cage, surrounded by dead and dying fish all around them.

The name of the contraption responsible: a ‘foover.’

A ‘foover’? 

Yes, you read that right. 

A ‘foover’ sounds almost cartoonish, but it’s no laughing matter. 

It’s a cage-like device used to suck up dead fish from sea pen floors, treating them as if they were mere debris on a living room floor. And, tragically, sometimes live fish are caught alongside the dead ones.

In the past year, I’ve witnessed appalling scenes: fish entering stunning machines backwards, their backs clubbed instead of their heads; fish having their gills cut by workers while fully conscious; and fish left to die in murky waters as they’re eaten alive by sea lice.

Enough is enough. 

At Animal Equality, we’re taking a stand against the callousness of the fish farming industry and holding them accountable.

Alongside lawyers, we’ve filed a complaint with the Animal and Plant Health Authority, prompting a formal investigation into Mowi, a company single-handedly responsible for the death of tens of millions of farmed fish and billions of wild fish every single year.

But we’re not just addressing symptoms, we’re tackling the root of the problem too, by promoting plant-based alternatives.

Salmon deserve to live. 

And they certainly shouldn’t be hoovered up by so-called ‘foovers’. 

They should be swimming vast distances in the ocean where they belong. 

Will you swim against the tide? Will you breathe life back into our waters and give fish the oxygen they deserve by setting up a monthly donation today?

Your contribution, whatever the size, holds the power to enact real change.

It will enable us to continue to keep fish in the media spotlight, challenge the expansion of new farms, and effectively persuade decision-makers to enact stronger legal protections for fish.

Please, help keep our charity and fish afloat …

GIVE FISH THE OXYGEN THEY DESERVE

With gratitude, 

Abigail Penny