Sea lice remain a perennial challenge for salmon farms, causing physical damage and stress, stunting growth, and in some cases, resulting in mortalities. Traditional treatment methods, such as mechanical and thermal delousing, add their own strain on fish health while driving up operational costs. And with sea lice becoming increasingly resistant to chemical treatments, finding effective, alternative solutions has become a top priority.

Now, researchers at the NORCE Norwegian Research Centre and Norwegian equipment supplier Harbor AS are trialing an unconventional method to deter sea lice from attaching to salmon: electric fences. The initiative is part of the BioSeaLice project, which is investigating whether the Harbor fence – an enclosing electromagnetic field around a salmon pen – can effectively reduce sea lice infestations.

Image: Ed Wingate, Unsplash