The salmon-farming industry tolerates events that would be unthinkable in other forms of farming, the UK's premier conference on aquaculture has been told.

Andrew Wallace, from the Association of Salmon Fisheries Boards, said the chicken production industry would never tolerate a situation where "broiler chickens were allowed" to run onto motorways.

Yet fish farms seemed to regard fish escapes as unavoidable rather than events which could be prevented.

Mr Wallace, speaking at the Aquaculture Today 2005 Conference at the Edinburgh's Marriott Hotel, described the escape situation as untenable.

The issue of fish escapes is acknowledged to be one of the most difficult questions to be addressed in a new fisheries bill planned by the Scottish Executive.

Some voices in Scotland are pressing for heavy sanctions to be applied to fish farms which suffer escapes.

Mr Wallace said he believed some kind of regulation is necessary in this area.

But it is believed the Scottish Executive is concerned that too heavy a touch could be counter-productive. It is feared that no farm will report an escape, should this happen, if they were in effect incriminating themselves and laying themselves open to future prosecution.

The issue of escapes has been brought sharply into focus by storms in January which battered the Western Isles of Scotland, leading to a number of escapes where moorings gave way under the atrocious weather conditions.

The Scottish Executive is likely to weigh up whether or not the rare nature of such extreme weather conditions could justify situations where fish farms are asked to invest huge sums of money in strengthening their cages and mooring to guard against what are likely to be rare occurrences.

However Lorna Bateson, from the joint marine programme for the Scottish Wildlife Trust and WWF Scotland, in her contribution to the conference, pointed out that such storms are predicted to increase in coming years and that the industry should be forced to plan for their occurrence.

Up to 200 delegates including politicians, scientists, trade body and industry representatives are attending the two day conference, organised by Fish Farmer magazine at the Marriott Hotel.

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