Mowi reports 24,696 salmon deaths at Newfoundland farm in December.
Mowi has reported the deaths of 24,696 Atlantic salmon at its Friar Cove site on the south coast of Newfoundland, a figure that triggered mandatory public disclosure under provincial regulations.
In a report dated December 20, the company said the mortalities represented just over 10 percent of the site’s stock and were cumulative rather than the result of a single incident. Mowi said there was no single cause, adding that the losses were “likely due to the residual effects from a sea lice infestation experienced during Fall 2025.”
Speaking to CBC News, Mowi Canada East managing director Gideon Pringle said the reported figure reflected several weeks of losses compounded by weather conditions.
“Really what’s happened here is the numbers have added up…[over] four weeks of not being able to harvest and empty that [pen],” Pringle said, citing prolonged storm conditions over a three-week period at the end of November.
Despite the scale of the December disclosure, Pringle said the situation did not represent an abnormal event for the company.
“There’s no issue here for us. There’s no die-off,” he said. “We’ve just really had a combination of slightly higher than normal farming mortality combined with bad weather.”
The December report follows a challenging year for salmon farming in Newfoundland and Labrador. In August, Mowi reported that around 400,000 salmon had died across three sites in the province. Earlier in July, thousands of fish were lost at the Little Burdock Cove site, which the company attributed to elevated water temperatures.
Reflecting on the wider conditions facing the sector, Pringle told CBC News: “I’ve been in this industry 40 years, and 2025 has been my worst experience ever.”
He said environmental pressures had made aquaculture increasingly difficult, pointing to broader climate-related impacts, although he stressed there was no direct causal link.
“It’s just the environment we live in. We have good years and bad years, and I think that probably goes back, in farming terms, to the dawn of time,” he said.
Pringle also criticised Newfoundland and Labrador’s mortality reporting framework, which requires public disclosure when a production unit reaches 10 percent mortality.
He described the system as “very inefficient,” adding that it is “sometimes distressing” and “portrays Newfoundland as a very poor place to farm salmon.”
“[It] takes away all sorts of investment opportunities,” he said. “The reporting systems that we have is doing a lot of harm for our industry.”
