App for monitoring fish welfare during delousing

Norway is the world’s largest producer of farmed salmon, and more than 95 per cent is being exported. Industrialised aquaculture, however, raises the risk of infection, deformities and fatality of both wild and farmed salmon from sea lice.

Controlling lice is an ongoing challenge for fish farmers, as the process of delousing fish also poses a risk to fish welfare. The introduction of mechanical delousing in recent years also requires better real-time monitoring of the process.

Anteo’s FishCtrl app provides fish farmers with critical decision support through precise and quick digital counting of sea lice, real-time monitoring and automated data collection.

FishCtrl creates a digital log of injuries, deformities and lice counts, and enables fish farmers to monitor fish welfare in real time to reduce fish stress, injuries and fatalities. Welfare indicators are based on the FISHWELL standard.

The FishCtrl app makes the delousing process more efficient and gives the operators the ability to monitor fish welfare in real time, resulting in healthier fish after delousing and lower risk of infection, injuries and fatalities.

The app saves fish farmers critical time on feedback and decision-making during the delousing process, and documentation is automatically made available in a digital system. The data can also be exported to various aquaculture operating systems and business intelligence solutions for further analysis.

The global salmon market achieved a volume of 3.7 million metric tons in 2018, and is projected to reach 4.7 million metric tons by 2024. There is particularly promising potential for growth in Norway, as the country is seeking to become the world’s leading seafood nation, with 5 million metric tons of sustainable aquaculture production in 2050. Sea lice has been identified as one of the main challenges for increased production in aquaculture.

Prioritising biosecurity, Anteo cooperates closely with industry and research organisations to solve the challenges of disease, delousing and impact on fish welfare. The company is further developing the FishCtrl app to record fish welfare before and after delousing to evaluate the effect of the process and optimise operations.