by Anura Guruge
on March 13, 2023
Click images to ENLARGE.
An interesting & educational YouTube video I found when researching for this post.
It was at the main dock in ‘Eastport‘, Maine, when I visited last Thursday. To begin with I was just seeing it headon, BUT I could tell it was BIG. Well no cat was ever more curious than I. I ambled over. WOW. It was full of ducts, pumps & other equipment — as you can see from the 2nd composite image. I thought it was some kind of dredging machine — probably harvesting some valuable minerals from the seabed. Well, I tend to saunter, look, peer over, take pictures. You can’t miss me. I had seen a deckhand & I was hoping I could catch him again. I was in LUCK. He came out & said something along the lines of: ‘I see you are interested‘. Heck, I was.
Nice young lad. He proceeded to educate me. Very patient. Answered all my questions.
He told me it was to ‘de-lice’ (delouse) — i.e., remove lice — from salmon.
I guess he ASSUMED that I realized that he was talking about farmed salmon contained within pens. NO, I had not made that connection at that point.
I had visions of this ship going out, in open waters, catching salmon & then delousing them.
I had NO IDEA that salmon got lice & that they needed delousing.
I eat farmed salmon from Maine, that I get from ‘Hannaford‘, at least two to three times a week. I had no idea about lice. Knew that fish got parasites but this was kind of new (though having kept fish for as many years as I have I should have remembered that they get ‘stuff’ growing on their scales).
I commented that this had to be expensive. Big SHIP with a crew of 7 (including the captain). It is owned by the company that operates the pens (outside of Eastport). This is part of the whole farming process.
They use hot water to remove the lice. The removed lice is dried and sold as fertilizer.
Just in the last half-hour I have learnt a LOT about this process. WOW! It is controversial. Check out this article (from which I got the above YouTube).
The ships even have a name. Thermolicer! That makes sense.
Well I was sure you would want to know all about this.
