Regulators must share inspection reports from Scottish salmon farms, following landmark ruling
As further footage emerges showing Scottish salmon suffering from blindness, lice infestations, and open wounds on farms linked to Co-Op and M&S supplier, Animal Equality is calling on the Government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency to “come clean on the industry’s mounting welfare failures”.
Landmark ruling
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ruled against the Government’s Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), after it refused to share salmon farm welfare inspection reports, finding it had no valid grounds to withhold the information from the public.
The decision follows a Guardian report in February which revealed that more than 35 million deaths in just under three years; although the APHA – responsible for overseeing fish welfare on farms – received 22 complaints of fish welfare abuses since 2022, it has never issued a formal warning, care notice or referred a case to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. When asked to disclose its inspection reports, APHA refused, claiming it “would likely result in significant detriment to the companies, negatively impacting their ability to conduct business, manage their reputation and their ability to protect their business”.
Now, in a landmark ruling – and what we are hailing a “watershed moment for public transparency” – the ICO has rejected the APHA’s position and ordered full disclosure of the withheld inspection reports. The Commissioner notes that APHA had already released some reports previously, while withholding others, and also that much of the information dated back to 2021-22 so was unlikely to still pose a meaningful commercial risk to salmon farming companies.
Reports uncover millions of hidden animal deaths
As a result, APHA has released some inspection reports. One details that at an on-land salmon farm named Inchmore, operated by Mowi – Scotland’s largest salmon farming company – over 100,000 fish suffocated after a worker left them unattended and their access to oxygen ceased; in a separate incident at the same site the same month, a build-up of hydrogen sulphide killed over one million fish in ten hours. APHA took no enforcement action. Since this event a whistleblower made public a video which shows the farm floor thick with fish faeces from an overflowing tank. A huge waste container appears to have overflowed, leaving the sides of the tank stained and the ground carpeted in brown sludge.
Another report states that at a site – Applecross – operate by Bakkafrost and certified by the RSPCA, 600,000 fish died from hydrogen sulphide build-up; the problem recurred months later on an even larger scale, killing over 1.5 million fish. Again, no enforcement action followed.
At a trout farm – Maevag Hatchery – referred by the Fish Health Inspectorate, APHA found that roughly 70,000 fish had died – with the 7,800 survivors subsequently killed as economically unviable – and that the site had never once reported mortality. APHA’s response was to email the operator a copy of the Code of Good Practice.
In a separate incident, nearly half a million fish were transferred to Ouseness in Orkney in February 2022 by organic salmon farming corporation, Cooke. The site experienced significant deaths due to several factors, including stormy seas and fungal infections. Within the first six weeks after the transfer, 123,000 fish died. These deaths were not reported to the Fish Health Inspectorate or the APHA, as reporting rules do not require mortalities during the first six weeks after being transferred to sea to be reported. By the time the site notified the Fish Health Inspectorate, and after several further weeks before the APHA was informed, the delay continued; APHA did not carry out a remote inspection until June and by that point the total number of fish deaths had exceeded 200,000. To date there is no record of any site visit having been carried out.
Salmon blinded, wounded, and covered in lice on farms linked to Co-op and M&S
Further footage published today by Animal Equality UK, from a Scottish salmon farm operated by Scottish Sea Farms also places further pressure on APHA to release more recent inspection reports. The footage, filmed in March 2026 at Fiunary, shows salmon suffering from blindness, open wounds, severe sea lice infestations, and missing noses. The company is the primary supplier to Marks & Spencer, and the farm is known to provide Scottish salmon to Co-op.
Animal Equality instructed law firm Advocates for Animals to submit a formal complaint about conditions at Fiunary to APHA in March 2026, after it received the footage, but APHA has not disclosed what action, if any, it has taken. Animal Equality is now formally demanding that APHA confirms what steps have been taken and releases all inspection reports for the site and its operator, a requirement under the recent ruling by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Between 16th February and 5th April 2026, Fiunary recorded 45,684 salmon deaths. The farm has experienced elevated mortality for seven consecutive weeks, with nearly 10,000 deaths in the most recent weekly report alone. During the specific week in which the footage was filmed, 5,941 fish died. Cardiomyopathy Syndrome (CMS) – an infectious viral disease causing severe inflammation of the salmon heart, for which there is no vaccine – has been confirmed by the Fish Health Inspectorate as the primary cause of death.
The site has also recorded alarming sea lice levels during Scotland’s so-called ‘sensitive period’, which runs from 1st February to 30th June and coincides with wild juvenile Atlantic salmon migrating from rivers to sea. During this period, farms are required under the industry’s Code of Good Practice to keep average adult female lice counts below 0.5 per fish, in an attempt to prevent disease or lice spreading from the farms to wild animals. In the week beginning 9th February, Fiunary recorded 2.73 adult female lice per fish, nearly five and a half times the permitted threshold. The site then failed to submit lice counts for three consecutive weeks in February and March, citing veterinary advice and ‘harvesting’ activity.
APHA’s culture of secrecy has to end. This information belongs to the public and should not be buried in bureaucracy to shield global conglomerates from proper scrutiny. – Abigail Penny, Executive Director of Animal Equality UK
The latest footage and ICO ruling comes amid growing alarm about the state of Scotland’s salmon farming industry. The Scottish Government’s Rural Affairs and Islands Committee recently wrote to the Cabinet Secretary expressing serious concern over persistently high death rates across the sector and the salmon industry’s potential impact on wild Atlantic salmon populations, which are currently at an all-time recorded low.
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