Salmon mass mortality events and occupational health and safety in Chilean aquaculture

Abstract

Mass mortality events (MMEs) threaten the health of fish and are also a potential threat to the health and safety of workers. This paper presents findings from a desktop risk assessment exercise focused on potential aquaculture occupational health and safety (AOHS) hazards and risks associated with MMEs in Chile. The study reviews academic and grey literature, government regulations and MME reports and statistics to assess the scale and distribution of MMEs; identifies associated documented and potential health and safety hazards; and documents and assesses policy responses to MMEs in the Chilean context through the lens of health and safety. The paper documents the size and regional distribution of salmon MME occurrences in Chile from 2016 to 2022. It discusses AOHS hazards associated with MMEs such as exposure to hydrogen sulfide, drowning and diving-related illnesses and potential issues around accessing hospitals and hyperbaric chambers for workers in remote aquaculture regions, as well as exposure to antibiotics and antibiotic residues. Recent Chilean regulatory requirements around reporting and management of MMEs that have the potential to help reduce identified MME-related risks for workers are described and addressed.

Key policy highlights

• Risk of mass mortality events (MMEs) in marine aquaculture is increasing as the industry expands and climate change increases fluctuations in marine conditions. Policies need to be developed to counteract these risks.

• MMEs-related worker accidents and environmental degradation point to the urgent need to develop environmental and occupational health and safety (OHS) guidelines that prevent MMEs and protect workers and the environment.

• The Chilean OHS guidelines related to aquaculture MMEs may be adapted and used in other countries.

• Surveillance programs on harmful algal blooms and antibiotic resistance (AMR) markers may be a preventive measure towards MMEs and exposure to AMR markers.

KEYWORDS:

• Chilean salmon aquaculture
• occupational health and safety risk assessment
• diving-related hazards
• hydrogen-sulfide exposure
• antimicrobial resistance

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank to Dr. Zamam Sajid (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada) and SERNAPESCA (Government of Chile), for sharing data on mass mortality events between 2016 and 2022.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical statement

The research presented in this manuscript did not involve any animal or human participants.

Data sharing statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Authorship contributions

Cavalli LS: conceptualization, writing – original draft, data analysis, review and editing; Tapia-Jopia C: writing – original draft, review and editing, map development; Ochs, C. L.: writing – original draft, review and editing, provided the section on AMR; Lopez Gomez MA: writing – original draft; data analysis, review and editing; Neis B: conceptualization, writing, data analysis, review and editing. All authors approve the version to be published; and agree to be responsible for all aspects of the work.

Notes

1 Data obtained from media websites and literature (Table 2) may reflect real time reporting of the MMEs and may differ from the data provided by SERNAPESCA (Table 1) which reports the final reported losses in tons based on company reporting.

Additional information

Funding

This Research Project was partially sponsored by Ocean Frontier Institute, through an award from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund [grant number 20181253] and by the Department of Industry, Energy and Technology, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada [grant number 20210487].