Nofima and IMR publish handbooks on salmon crowding welfare.
Nofima and the Institute of Marine Research have released two handbooks to measure and monitor salmon welfare during crowding, one for tanks and one for marine net pens.
Crowding, which temporarily increases fish density during movements and treatments, is identified as a critical step in farmed salmon handling. The handbooks update frameworks and toolboxes to monitor welfare before, during, and after crowding, with schemes and metrics for surface and subsurface observation. They also introduce a first version of an underwater crowding intensity risk scale for ROV operators, based on work led by the Institute of Marine Research.
The materials were developed under the CrowdMonitor project funded by the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (FHF), with practical input from Cermaq Norway and Grieg Seafood. The handbooks are currently available in English and will be translated into Norwegian this winter. They are available first via FHF, with recordings of the launch webinar and supporting posters and fact sheets to be hosted on Nofima’s project page.
“We have received many inquiries about this from the industry in Norway and abroad, so there is clearly a need for more information,” said project manager Chris Noble of Nofima.
Noble and Lars Helge Stien of the Institute of Marine Research plan a follow-up webinar in April 2026 to gather feedback and issue a revised edition if required.
