News / Spotter plane spies missing salmon cages
TWELVE salmon cages containing around 300,000 fully grown farmed fish have been found drifting in the North Sea almost two weeks after they broke free from their moorings in Shetland.
A Scottish government fisheries spotter plane found the cages at around 11.45am on Friday about 60 miles east of the isle of Bressay.
The Lerwick whitefish boat Opportune is standing by the cages until their owners, Meridian Salmon Group, can arrange for their salvage.
The Bellshill-based company, which is owned by Norwegian multinational Morpol, has chartered a Danish tug to retrieve the cages.
It is unlikely the fish, which have a resale value of more than £3 million, will have survived the ordeal which began during the Christmas gales when wind speeds in Shetland peaked just over 100mph.
Employees at the Unst salmon farm returned to work on Boxing Day to discover the cages had vanished and alerted the coastguard who set off a major air and sea search.
The cages were tracked down as they drifted between 30 and 40 miles east of Shetland, but an attempt to tow them to safety using the powerful well boat Victoria Viking failed on 30 December as the tide was so strong.
The cages have been missing since that date, so Marine Scotland sent their Watchdog 64 fish patrol aircraft north on Thursday to continue the search. They found the cages on Friday after spending more than two hours flying over an area where the coastguard calculated they would be.
A coastguard spokesman said the plane reported that the 12 cages, each measuring 30 metres across, were still attached to each other.
He said: “Obviously when they are roped together they form a big object and if anything hit them there would have been damage done. It’s good to know they have been found and someone is now in a position they can stay with them.”
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