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To: North Ayrshire Council and the Scottish Government

Stop proposed Cumbrae fish farms going ahead!

Reject proposals by Dawnfresh Seafoods Ltd to build two new sea pen rainbow trout farms in the Firth of Clyde off the south east shore of Great Cumbrae.

Why is this important?

The Firth of Clyde is home to populations of porpoises, seals and occasionally there are pods of dolphins and orcas that hunt far up into the Firth in the warmer months. The Firth of Clyde is also one of the last thriving ecosystems for migratory salmonids in the west of Scotland, however it is already in decline like everywhere else.

Fish farms are a great danger to sea mammals as they are often caught up in pen nets or shot due to their predatory nature. Furthermore the excess feed and the fish faeces from the pens falls to the sea bed and these areas become a dead zone with great impact on reef, shellfish and inhabitants on the sea bed.

Then we have the sea lice infestations, which we have already learned cannot be controlled by any means due to the ideal climatic conditions of our waters for their population densities to explode. These little pests can travel tens of miles to find a host, so they would certainly cause great impact to the smolts and adult migratory salmonids that run both the Lomond and Clyde systems and also the many smaller rivers along the North Ayrshire coast.

Angling and Sea Mammal sight seeing in the Clyde and North Ayrshire catchments provides a permanent economy and a way of life for tens of thousands of people in the area. These two large, environmentally unfriendly fish farms will provide only 12 permanent jobs and will affect all of the people and wildlife mentioned above.

Please take a stance and hopefully stop these plans from being approved.

I would hope the beautiful people of Largs and Great Cumbrae will stand with me and the rest of the Firth of Clyde in saying no to fish farming in the Firth of Clyde. Our ecosystems have already suffered enough from the nearby Striven salmon farms.

Save our waters please.

Largs

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Updates

2019-03-15 12:07:40 +0000

1,000 signatures reached

2019-03-07 14:31:20 +0000

500 signatures reached

2019-03-04 21:17:44 +0000

100 signatures reached

2019-03-04 13:26:43 +0000

50 signatures reached

2019-03-04 06:31:49 +0000

25 signatures reached

2019-03-03 22:21:48 +0000

10 signatures reached