Campaigners complained to a government animal welfare watchdog, with videos of badly injured salmon at a fish farm. This prompted a review, but should more have been done?
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‘Sickening’ videos of damaged salmon at highland farm
Campaigners complained to a government animal welfare watchdog, with videos of badly injured salmon at a fish farm. This prompted a review, but should more have been done?
Warning: this story contains images which some may find upsetting.
Videos revealing salmon at a highland fish farm with severely damaged faces, heads and bodies prompted an investigation by the UK government's animal welfare watchdog, The Ferret can reveal.
Secret filming was conducted for the campaign group, Animal Equality UK, which described the videos as “among the most distressing” it had seen. They were filmed at the West Strome salmon farm run by the Faroese firm, Bakkafrost, near Lochcarron in Wester Ross, between July and December 2025, it said.
Animal Equality sent the videos, along with a formal complaint, to the government regulator, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, which launched an investigation.
Bakkafrost said that it had conducted a “full review” at the farm with the agency, which was “satisfied” with the action taken on “impacted” fish. The agency refused to comment on its investigation.
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The Scottish Greens said the videos were “sickening” and “shocking”. They accused the salmon farming industry of “poor” welfare standards and the animal agency’s enforcement as “nowhere near good enough”.
The Scottish Parliament’s rural affairs committee is conducting an inquiry into salmon farming to assess whether enough progress has been made on animal welfare and other issues since its report in 2018. The rural affairs secretary, Mairi Gougeon and senior Scottish Government officials are due to be questioned on 11 March.
According to Animal Equality, the first video included footage filmed on 14 July and 20 August 2025, underwater inside a salmon cage at West Strome. It showed fish with wounded and missing eyes, deformities, and severe lice infestations eating away skin to produce “death crowns” around their heads.
The second video was said to have been filmed at the same farm between 30 November and 4 December 2025. It showed salmon with badly damaged eyes, noses and heads, open wounds and lice infestations.
The fish welfare expert, Dr Mark Borthwick, commented that one salmon in the video had "the worst head damage I have seen” and appeared to be “swimming without a head”.
He attributed the injuries to lice, diseases and fungal infections. In some cases there may have been “mishandling” of salmon while they were being moved, he claimed.
Animal Equality submitted the videos in two formal complaints to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), which works for the Scottish and UK governments, in November and December 2025.
The campaign group argued that the footage showed “multiple breaches of welfare law” which should be investigated and enforced. Otherwise, it warned, “these breaches will be treated as common practice within the industry and lead to further suffering for farmed fish within Scotland.”
Animal Equality’s director, Abigail Penny, pointed out that no salmon farm had ever been prosecuted for poor fish welfare. "In all my years reviewing footage from inside fish farms, this ranks among the most distressing I have encountered,” she told The Ferret.
“These fish are hauntingly lethargic - salmon with no faces and tissue-like skin, their bodies ravaged by lice as they drift aimlessly through the water. Yet APHA is as tight-lipped as ever. Not a word about what action, if any, will follow.”
The Scottish Greens commended Animal Equality for releasing the videos, describing the footage as “sickening” and “shocking”. Fish should not be subjected to such “awful conditions”, said the highland Green MSP, Ariane Burgess.
“But we also know that this is only a small fraction of the suffering that is taking place. The vast majority of it will never be caught on camera,” she added.
“Welfare standards across the industry are far too poor, and the enforcement of regulations is nowhere near good enough.”
Image thanks to Animal Equality UK
Bakkafrost Scotland insisted that fish welfare was its highest priority, and pointed out that its farms were monitored every day by experts. "There was a full review with APHA and we engaged openly throughout,” said a company spokesperson.
“After considering all the information available, the regulator was satisfied with the action taken on the select fish impacted. The West Strome site has been fallow since the end of last year."
The Animal and Plant Health Agency declined to comment on the complaints about West Strome salmon farm, saying it was “unable to comment on individual cases”. Instead, it reiterated comments it made in response to an earlier query by The Ferret in February.
"We treat all reports of suspected cases of poor welfare at salmon farms seriously and all are assessed by our vets,” said a spokesperson for the agency. “We work closely with local authorities and the Scottish Government’s Fish Health Inspectorate to manage each case through our standard process of triage and assessment.”
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Rob has more than 40 years’ experience specialising in reporting on environmental issues. He has co-authored three books about nuclear power, produced radio and television programmes. He likes muckraking.
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