A total of 35,000 salmon escaped from Danish feed company Aller Aqua's breeding facility in western Norway on Oct. 29, the company confirmed to Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK.
The fish weighed an average 4.8 kilos and were ready for harvest, according to the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries. The escape amounted to roughly 185 metric tons of salmon.
The fish escaped through a 4x4 meter hole in a cage that held a total of 40,000 fish. On Sunday, the company carried out a count of the remaining fish in the cage.
Aller Aqua Norway said in a press release on Monday that it regretted the incident, but it did not want to give further details about the reason for the escape at the moment.
The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries ordered Aller Aqua Norway to carry out environmental monitoring and removal of the escaped farmed fish in 11 waterways. Out of these, five are national wild salmon waterways.
"The work to remove the escaped fish will be carried out by a professional body and the goal is that the escaped salmon will not be allowed to spawn in the relevant waterways," the directorate said.
Some recaptures have been made, and Aller Aqua sees no weaknesses in the facility that could risk further escapes, the company said.
