2025 a 'dreadful' year for Atlantic salmon farming, says Mowi managing director

Mowi Canada East's managing director says 2025 was a "dreadful" year for Atlantic salmon farming.

“I've been in this industry 40 years, and 2025 has been my worst experience ever,” Gideon Pringle told CBC News in a telephone interview on Friday.

He said the year’s environmental conditions made aquaculture a difficult business.  Although not a direct link, Pringle pointed to the wildfires experienced in Newfoundland and Labrador as an example.

“It's just the environment we live in. We have good years and bad years, and I think that probably goes back, in farming terms, to the dawn of time."

Mowi says recent deaths not alarming

In August,  the company reported that about 400,000 salmon died at three Mowi sites in the province.

And in July, thousands of fish died at their Little Burdock Cove site, due to increased water temperatures.

Meanwhile, Mowi reported on Dec. 20 that 24,696 salmon died at its Friar Cove site, near Francois on the south coast of Newfoundland. That number makes up more than 10 per cent of the farm’s population, which is why the company was required to report it publicly.

In the report, the company said there was no single cause for the deaths, and that it was “likely due to the residual effects from a sea lice infestation experienced during Fall 2025.”

Mowi said sea lice are naturally occurring parasites that live on many fish species, and do not pose human health or food safety risks.

Pringle noted that this report was a result of a culmination of deaths that added up over multiple weeks.

The company said prolonged storm conditions over three weeks at the end of November caused the number of deaths to accumulate.

“Really what's happened here is the numbers have added up…[over] four weeks of not being able to harvest and empty that [pen],” said Pringle.

So despite the high number of salmon mortalities this year, Pringle said the recently-reported deaths are still normal.

“There's no issue here for us. There's no die-off,” he said.

“We've just really had a combination of slightly higher than normal farming mortality combined with bad weather.”

Province’s reporting system criticized

Pringle said the company had to report the deaths in December due to what he called “very inefficient” provincial regulations.

He said the government requires that anytime a unit reaches 10 percent mortality, the company must make a public report.

Pringle said this reporting system is “sometimes distressing" as it “portrays Newfoundland as a very poor place to farm salmon.”

“[It] takes away all sorts of investment opportunities,” he said. “The reporting systems that we have is doing a lot of harm for our industry.”

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