How many cases of chronic lice infestation on fish farms have been reported in each of the last 10 years.

Marine Scotland’s fish health inspectorate, monitor sea lice on fish farms through a programme of sea lice inspections and enhanced sea lice inspections. A basic sea lice inspection is conducted whenever aquaculture facilities in seawater are visited, an enhanced inspection is completed in cases where elevated lice numbers have been observed, reported or the site is considered to be at greater risk of elevated sea lice numbers. The number of inspections carried out is noted in the following table:

2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015 (to date)
Basic Inspection
24
250
188
122
90
106
86
52
Enhanced Inspection
2
22
7
10
27
14
29
14
Prior to the enactment of the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act 2007, there were no inspections carried out solely for the purposes of monitoring sea lice populations, hence the absence of data prior to the latter part of 2008. Beyond this there is no requirement to report chronic sea lice infestations to the Scottish Government.