Charity offering people in Sheffield free vegan as part of sea lice campaign

A charity is offering Sheffield residents the chance to try free vegan alternatives to fish as part of a campaign to highlight how sea lice is affecting salmon and trout.
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Vegan charity Viva! is inviting people to try vegan fish alternatives free of charge at the Town Hall on Wednesday, April 13, from noon to 3pm as part of their sea lice awareness campaign ‘Lice-nsed to kill’.

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The group said the campaign highlights the invasion of parasitic sea lice across the UK’s salmon and trout farms.

This week, the people of Sheffield are invited to try free fish-alternatives, as vegan campaigning charity Viva! launch their sea lice awareness campaign ‘Lice-nsed to kill’.This week, the people of Sheffield are invited to try free fish-alternatives, as vegan campaigning charity Viva! launch their sea lice awareness campaign ‘Lice-nsed to kill’.
This week, the people of Sheffield are invited to try free fish-alternatives, as vegan campaigning charity Viva! launch their sea lice awareness campaign ‘Lice-nsed to kill’.
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Viva! claim intensive fish farms provide the perfect breeding ground for these underwater parasites and the devastating impact they have on both farmed and wild fish.

In a statement, the group said: “In the wild, salmon and trout are affected by naturally-occurring parasites known as sea lice. But as anadromous species – a term that describes fish born in fresh water who spend most of their lives in salt water and return to fresh water to spawn – salmonids are well-adapted to cope with the odd passenger, dislodging them during their migration.

"A lice found on a wild salmon or trout is normally an indicator that they’ve recently returned from the ocean to deposit eggs. 

“Sadly, in the world of intensive fish farming this is not the case. Thousands of fish are forced to live in confined, filthy sea cages where they’re unable to migrate to fresh water and therefore shed the lice.

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"High stocking densities on fish farms ultimately increases the occurrence of sea lice, creating a breeding reservoir that produces huge numbers of mobile juvenile sea lice, spoilt for choice in terms of finding a host fish. It’s a catastrophic consequence of the intensive aquaculture system.”

The group added that lice infestations cause ‘unnecessary suffering for fish, resulting in severe scale damage, reduced growth rates and a loss of their physical and microbial protective function’.

They added that fish for sale on supermarket counters have even been found with lice still attached.

In highlighting the issue, Viva! hope to encourage more people to become vegan.  For more information on fish alternatives visit www.viva.org.uk/fish-swaps

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