Norwegian Fish Farmers

02/23/2005

I sit in the office with a wonderful moon shining down from high in the eastern sky, very easy to walk around outside by its light, and still one day to go to full moon and my wedding anniversary! This afternoon has given us wonderful alpine weather, blue skies, sunshine, easterly wind at zero degrees. This morning was a bit grimmer with mountain fog, snow showers and feeling very cold. However, the radio reports much worse weather to the east of us. The larger garden birds are looking for food, Blackbirds, Thrushes; Fieldfares etc. smaller birds are numerous with all finches, tits, robins and crossbills in view. Buzzards are pairing up and I have a ringside seat as a Sparrow Hawk has a go at a tree full of Chaffinches. Down the glen, woodpeckers are about, and walking outwith the garden puts up snipe and woodcock. At night, Owls are in the beech trees. There is a lot of spring bird song, so love is in the air. Even my old enemies the hoodie crows are bravely moving closer to the Tower. We have such a wealth of birds and animals in their natural habitat that I sometime wonder about the wisdom of some forms of artificial animal husbandry. My personal “bete noir” is salmon fish farming. As far as I can tell, there is bugger all market for this product, which is now completely owned and controlled by the Norwegians, a strange race at the best of times. Why produce a completely synthetic, poisonous and tasteless version of a magnificent wild animal, that then causes untold damage to natural native fish stocks, when the production has to be chipped into cat food at a loss. Lets face it any sensible cat will not eat it either. Is it the global economy? Or is it simply good old-fashioned corruption, money laundering and racketeering? God knows, but I do notice that huge unplanned losses of farmed salmon occurred this January during severe weather when sea cages broke up. Firstly, who is paying for this, secondly, this is an ecological catastrophe with the potential of a major oil spill. Why is there no national outcry? Who stands to gain? I work away indoors in the morning, but as I nurse my wrath about fish farming, dearest Dotty and I manage a bracing climb up the Alt Trollaigh marvelling at the signs of much older settlements and run-rigs in the glen, and wondering at the hard lives that must have been led here only a few hundred years ago. Time to warm myself by the fire, Ardbeg in hand. Yours Aye, Archie, The Baron Trollaigh.