Dr Jenny Scott’s letter to Penguin News

Dear Editor,
I've been following the Salmon Free Falklands Facebook page 'Celebrate Our Coastal Waters' this month and am enjoying the many shared photos and comments about your incredible coastline. I worked in the Antarctic tourism industry for over 20 years and had the absolute privilege of visiting a number of wildlife islands in the Falklands. What an incredible place you have. The coastlines were as pristine as I could have ever imagined anywhere.

I am from Tasmania, Australia and have been a keen sea kayaker for over thirty years. We have wonderful sea kayaking country here in Tasmania – a great selection of sheltered and exposed waters. Over the years the incursion of open-pen salmon farming into these waters has left a noticeable unpleasant legacy – black slime along foreshores, smothering green algae in inter-tidal zones, murky water, a film of oil on the water surface near the pens, noise and lights 24/7, and pollution onshore with bits of rope, black pipe and rubbish. At night there's also the sound of ‘bombs’, like cannon shots, to scare seals away, in otherwise wilderness areas like Macquarie Harbour. Not great to hear when you are camping out there. It is also horrible to see seabirds caught in the pens’ netting and left to die.

It is NOT WORTH IT to let fish farming companies in to spoil and degrade your inshore waters and beautiful Falklands coastlines! You are so fortunate. PLEASE DON’T LET THE FISH FARMS IN.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Jenny Scott

Hobart, Tasmania