Review of sea lice monitoring and seatrout/sealice database

Abstract

In February 1998, the Minister of State at the Department of the Marine requested that the Marine Institute, the Central Fisheries Board and the Salmon Research Agency review the effectiveness of the national sea trout research and monitoring programmes. It was agreed to review the scientific database, methodologies and data collection/ collation, identify steps to address any unidentified deficiencies in the programme techniques, and re-run data analysis in light of the previously commissioned independent reports and any subsequent responses from the various agencies involved in data collection. A thorough re-examination of the sea lice sampling programme, including changes and improvements made since 1997, for sea trout was carried out and suggestions for improvements in this programme were made. A comprehensive examination of the sea lice/sea trout was carried out in light of the independent reports which identified discrepancies in the original data.