Huon has recently applied to the Marine Farming Branch for a permit to temporarily harvest salmon in Norfolk Bay.
As farmers, we have a responsibility to ensure the highest biosecurity standards are developed and maintained and this is at the heart of the current temporary harvest permit application. We believe that this should help to break the cycle of Pilchard Orthomyxovirus (POMV) from infecting our next year-class of fish and those of other companies.
If our application is successful, it is proposed the harvest operations would occur between August 17th to November 30th, 2018.
We have explored all other alternatives such as harvesting fish in-situ in Storm Bay but due to the high-energy nature of the site, it poses a safety risk for our employees, and so short-term harvesting at Norfolk Bay is the best option to safeguard the biosecurity of our industry and protect our staff.
We recognise that we have not operated in this area before so residents may have questions about our proposal, and community can be reassured that this is not a steppingstone to Huon permanently operating in the area.
To correct some misinformation about our proposal and POMV, we have prepared two Q&A documents.
Read the Norfolk Bay Q&A here >
We welcome your feedback and want to hear questions that you might have about our proposal.
