The president of Chile’s salmon-farming advocacy, SalmonChile, has said that this year’s algae bloom has been nowhere near as destructive as the Red Tide of 2016, but he’s asking the industry to be on alert.
“It’s been pretty quiet this week. Over the weekend we saw some occurrences in Chiloe, but we have to be on-watch for the next two to three weeks,” SalmonChile president, Arturo Clement, was quoted by Cooperativa as saying.
“We’re still worried about conditions in the sea,” Clement said, adding that the algae bloom is likely to continue through the southern hemisphere’s summer.
Read Red Tide focus, as SALMON starts trading in Oslo
He confirmed that nearly 0.9 percent of the Chile’s biomass of farmed Atlantic salmon has been lost to the toxic algae or related illness. In 2016, Chilean growers endured a 14 percent loss.
Clement said neither staff nor production have been adversely impacted by the algal bloom, but he confirmed companies had been hit, and he pointed to Invermar’s loss of 1,600 salmon.