A leaked email from anti-salmon farming campaigner and photographer Corin Smith reveals mounting frustration over WildFish’s collaboration with animal rights groups.
In late April, SalmonBusiness received a leaked email originally sent by Corin Smith to a senior staff member at WildFish in January 2025. Smith — a well-known anti-salmon farming campaigner and photographer — issued a formal request for the removal of all his images and video from WildFish platforms, citing reputational concerns and what he describes as the organisation’s increasing alignment with animal rights activists.
The email, which SalmonBusiness has verified as authentic, lays bare growing internal tensions within the coalition opposing open-net salmon farming in Scotland. Smith accuses WildFish of allowing its salmon farming campaign to be “hijacked” by English-based vegan and animal rights groups, including Free Salmon, Viva!, Animal Equality, and Abolish Salmon Farming (ASF).
Read the full email below:
Hi XXXX,
Without prejudice,
Long story short, please take this email as a formal request to remove all my images/video from the WildFish platform, present and past, including but not limited to websites, literature and social media. All previous proposals and agreements to use images and video are withdrawn, on the basis that continued use of my images/video and name is resulting in a negative portrayal of me, by associating me with animal rights extremists, and as such would be and is a breach of terms of use and my general rights under copyright laws.
As you know I have, for some time, been concerned with WildFish’s recent public association with hardcore elements from the vegan/animal rights movements. Over the last couple of weeks it has been brought to my attention the full extent of what WildFish and the Coastal Communities Network has been up to with these people and orgs for quite some time now. I have already told you that I think it is a huge mistake to be anywhere near these people in public, both for WildFish, but also to allow them to hijack the campaigns I and others have built over many years.
They have little or no support anywhere, are despised by most in Scotland’s rural communities, are undertaking age-old animal rights tactics of harassment and persecution of individuals and are nearly all inextricably linked with the political hard left. Giving them leadership in this space will, in time, inevitably blow up and destroy the salmon farming campaigns, which have always had a mandate and moral authority arising from broad and reasoned public support here in Scotland. That will disappear, the more it becomes clear animal rights and vegans are leading on the issue.
England based animal rights orgs and activists have no place in the salmon farming debate in Scotland. Morally or tactically. Watching WildFish and CCN align with these orgs is like watching a car crash in slow motion.
However, I’m writing out of pure self interest. Today’s social media post, (attached below) where my images and name are platformed with Dale Vince (GBF) and Jamie Moyes (ASF)(Abolish Salmon Farming) are the final straw. I cannot allow any confusion or conflation between myself and vegan/animal rights extremists. Which is what these people are.
I point you to a recent public post in which Jamie Moyes seemingly takes delight in the death of a recreational fisherman, below. (that is just the tip of a huge iceberg of extremism on display, in public, for all to see)
How on earth you and WildFish have arrived at the conclusion that it’s good PR to support and work with Jamie Moyes (Abolish Salmon Farming), given his very obvious extreme public postings, is beyond comprehension.
Further Dale Vince (GBF) and his apparent funding for Free Salmon’s harassment of, and calling for jail for, the McDonalds is something I am appalled by. Not least because of the utter stupidity of attacking a small family business that has never caused a single salmon to lose its life or suffer harm, nor, with reference to WildFish’s promotion and support of this persecution, has Whiteshore Cockles ever resulted in the emission of a single sea louse or any harm to wild fish populations.
It’s akin to trying to destroy a small family business recycling plastic, because you’re opposed to Oil. Whether it be WildFish, Viva or Animal Equality I cannot see how any of these orgs has a remit to pursue Angus MacDonald within the terms of your primary charitable purposes.
It is clear to me that all those involved with Free Salmon, WildFish included, have lost their heads and now pursue this as a personal vendetta.
So if it is WildFish’s intention to continue to work with, coordinate with and share content of Dale Vince, Viva, Free Salmon, Animal Equality and Jamie Moyes (Abolish Salmon Farming) (especially when there are well established and rightly well respected leaders in the field of Animal Welfare in Scotland, in One Kind) please take this email as a formal request to remove all my images/video from the WildFish platform, present and past, including but not limited to website, literature and social media.
All previous proposals and agreements to use images and video are withdrawn, on the basis that continued use of my images/video and name by WildFish is resulting in a negative portrayal of me, by associating me with animal rights extremists, and as such would be and is a breach of terms of use and my rights under copyright.
I hope that this can be resolved quickly and quietly. To that extent, I will give WildFish 14 working days to fully comply.
It saddens me greatly, given all the incredible work done by, and with, AGS and Guy to position WildFish as a figurehead leader on salmon farming in Scotland and deliver close to a decade of parliamentary scrutiny, that all that credibility would be thrown away in order to participate in the social media froth of the animal rights movement.
Yours,
Corin
Corin Smith is a prominent figure in Scotland’s anti-salmon farming movement, known for his investigative photography and advocacy highlighting the environmental impacts of open-net pen aquaculture. Over the past decade, he has contributed to raising national media awareness and parliamentary scrutiny of the industry, often working alongside reform-focused NGOs such as WildFish.