Entangled gannets in top nets at salmon farms: EIR release

Information requested

Any material held regarding reports of recent incidents in which gannets have become entangled and killed in top nets at salmon farms on the west coast.

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

I attach a copy of the information you requested.

Some of the information you have requested is available from Annex 7 of the industry's code to good practice, which covers the use of top nets and makes specific mention of gannets (http://thecodeofgoodpractice.co.uk/chapters/).

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI - 202100149905 - Information released

File type

15 page PDF

File size

1.0 MB