Our first blog post touched on some of the new innovations being used to deal with sea lice. These are included in an extensive list of developing non-medicinal sea lice treatments which is available on the Global Salmon Initiative’s website. One of the latest innovations is ‘snorkel technology’, which has been found to be beneficial in terms of amoebic gill disease also (Wright et al, 2017). This will be reassuring to those that have opted for such technology if the evasive search for effective treatment for sea lice ends in the near future, as suggested by Benchmark Holdings. The Sheffield-based company claims its new Ectosan® sea lice bath treatment showed 100% efficacy against sea lice, and any residues can be removed with its associated CleanTreat® water treatment system.
An additional control method being considered is the use of selective breeding, with initial research indicating this could be effective (Gharbi et al, 2015). As the recent report into Scottish salmon farming by the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee concluded, research into mitigation of the industry’s environmental impacts needs to increase significantly. It will be interesting to see what the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee will conclude in the report from their subsequent inquiry, due to be published soon.