Newfoundland Minister of Fisheries and Land Resources Gerry Byrne will be meeting with Mowi CEO Alf-Helge Aarskog Thursday to discuss the massive die-offs at Mowi's Northern Harvest's operations in the Canadian province.

Byrne's staff told IntraFish he will meet with the Mowi CEO at an unspecified time Thursday to discuss the impacts of the die-off, which Mowi initially said was due to prolonged high water temperatures at some sea sites on the south coast of Newfoundland.

Mowi-owned Northern Harvest reported that as many as 1.8 million farmed salmon may have died in September, but at the time of the first incident, Jason Card, Mowi's director of communications for the province, told IntraFish the information was still being collected.

Byrne announced that he was suspending the farming licenses of Mowi Canada East's Northern Harvest operations after reports of additional netpens at the company's sites were impacted by a"mass salmon mortality" that first hit the company's sites last month.

Following the minister's announcement, Mowi announced a total of 2.6 million fish died -- around half of the company's Eastern Canada salmon.

Mowi Canada holds in total 59 licenses in Canada East, of which 47 in Newfoundland and 12 in New Brunswick.

On Oct. 25 it announced it had removed all 2.6 million salmon mortalities from the affected sites in the province.

Aquaculture

Mowi CEO, Newfoundland minister scheduled to discuss mass salmon die-off today