SALMON farmers have stepped up security following the reported sabotage of the entire stock at a farm near Clifden, Co Galway, at the weekend.
While it is not known who was responsible or what the motivation was, farmers fear "copy cat attacks", the Irish Salmon Growers Association said yesterday. A number of farms in Connemara have tightened security on sea cages at night, while gardai have also stepped up patrols in areas where there are fish farms.
Mr James Ryan, of Killary Salmon Company in Connemara, confirmed he had men at sea at night guarding fish cages following the incident at Mannin Bay, where over £1 million worth of damage was caused.
He regarded it as "an attack on the `basic code of the sea' where people look out for each other", which could ultimately put lives at risk. He said he had automated security systems already in place, as had many other farms.
The Western Regional Fisheries Board strongly condemned the damage at the farm, adding that it had offered its "full support" to the company. It expressed a willingness to "make its resources available to the Garda authorities to assist in the investigation into the event."
"Nobody with any interest in fisheries, whether wild or farmed, could contemplate such an act of barbarism," the board said.
The chairwoman of the Sea Trout Monitoring and Advisory Group (STMAG), Prof Emer Colleran, said the incident risked undermining the significant cooperation that had been achieved between salmon farmers and angling/tourism/environmental interests in recent years. This was reflected in the latest "very beneficial" STMAG report published this week, she added.
"The report is positive, straight talking and represents the outcome of very many meetings and a lot of hard work in between by individuals seeking reconciliation where people representing different interests in the salmon farming, sea fisheries and environmental sectors sat down together entered into real dialogue on the compatibility of salmon farming and wild fishery interest".
The report proposed measures that would have "beneficial and mutually acceptable outcomes"
for all interested parties, Prof Colleran said. "This is the only way forward people with different interests and agendas must sit down together and resolve their, difficulties in a manner which, would allow salmon farming and wild fisheries to co-exist in" harmony".
Last weekend's vandalism was unacceptable. "This action was riot carried out by environmentalists or conservationists. The individuals responsible must be isolated and their criminal and negative action must not be allowed to damage the co-operation that has emerged over the past year. It must not be allowed to counteract the positive recommendations of the second STMAG report," she added.