Salmon
Mortality is a major challenge for salmonid farming, causing economic losses and serving as an important indicator of fish health and welfare. The salmonid group developed data-driven tools and models to support the monitoring, early detection and management of health and welfare challenges in cultured Atlantic salmon in open-ocean net pens in Norway, Scotland and Ireland, and rainbow trout in ponds in Denmark. Key outputs include Laksetap, an interactive app and SalmonSyS, a prototype syndromic surveillance dashboard. The group also developed a Salmon Mortality Monitor prototype for visualising causes of mortality. These tools and models can benefit aquaculture producers, fish health professionals, veterinarians, inspectors, researchers and authorities by supporting earlier investigation of unusual mortality patterns, improved benchmarking and more informed decisions for fish health, welfare and production management.
Tools
Laksetap
An interactive app developed to visualise mortality and loss data for salmonids during the seawater production phase in Norway. It uses mandatory monthly reports from aquaculture companies and presents unique aggregated results at the county, production area and national level. The tool shows mortality, slaughterhouse rejections, escapes and other losses, while also providing epidemiological mortality indicators and downloadable data.
Objective: To support transparent, harmonised monitoring of fish mortality, welfare and production outcomes in Norwegian salmonid farming.
Key features
- Visualises salmonid mortality and loss data.
- Covers Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout.
- Presents aggregated results to protect confidentiality.
- Provides monthly mortality risk, cumulative annual mortality risk and production cycle mortality.
- Includes downloadable mortality calculator, datasets and tables.
Target users: Aquaculture companies, fish health professionals, veterinarians, regulators, researchers and other aquaculture stakeholders.
Access and resources
- Public tool (Norwegian): https://apps.vetinst.no/laksetap/
- Repository: https://zenodo.org/records/20344080
- Example data: https://github.com/NorwegianVeterinaryInstitute/laksetap
- Practice abstract: see/download a PDF here
SalmonSyS
A prototype syndromic surveillance dashboard developed to support early detection of health issues in Atlantic salmon farming. It uses site-level mortality data together with production and health-related variables, including stocking month, notifiable diseases, sea lice infestation and treatment.
Objective: To provide early warning signals for unusual mortality patterns and support proactive health management in salmon farming.
Key features
- Integrates monthly mortality records with key production and health-related variables.
- Visualises temporal mortality patterns at the farm level.
- Compares observed mortality against expected baseline levels.
- The syndromic surveillance (SyS) model generates alerts when mortality exceeds expected thresholds.
Target users: Aquaculture producers, fish health professionals, veterinarians, researchers and surveillance authorities.
Access and resources
- Example data: https://github.com/NorwegianVeterinaryInstitute/Salmon_SyS_Dashboard
- Practice abstract: see/download a PDF here
Salmon Mortality Monitor
The Salmon Mortality Monitor, collaboratively developed in Scotland, Ireland and Norway, provides an overview of salmon mortality in terms of numbers and biomass. It covers overall mortality estimates and can also break results down by contextual data, such as causes, including seal predation and bacterial infections. Designed for salmonids, it can be used by any fish farming operation with the appropriate data format.
Objective: To support transparent, harmonised monitoring of fish mortality, health & welfare, and production outcomes in salmonid farming.
Key features
- Can be attached to existing datasets in an automated pipeline, or work as a “use your own dataset” for a quick query.
- The prototype code can easily be adjusted to the needs of users.
- Users can interactively change space and time to visualise at different resolutions.
- Supports different types of mortality calculations.
- Visualisations can prompt further investigation.
Target users: Fish producers, authorities, certification bodies and producers’ organisations.
Access and resources
- Repository (code): https://zenodo.org/records/20815630
- Example dataset: https://zenodo.org/records/20811860
- Practice abstract: D6.4_First-set-of-practice-abstracts Practice Abstract 8, page 20, update (2026) available here: https://zenodo.org/records/20811605.
