In 2024, 70.3 million fish were lost in sea cages and
169.6 million juveniles were lost in smolt facilities.
Of the 460 million smolt put to sea, 15.3% were lost
before ever reaching slaughter.
Source: Fiskeridirektoratet — Official Statistics, updated 28.05.2025
Norwegian law defines a loss as any fish removed from stock that never reaches slaughter — deaths, culled fish, and escapes combined. Mortality figures reported separately can shrink over time as individual incidents get reclassified. The loss rate is harder to manipulate and gives the most complete picture of fish that failed to reach harvest, making it the better metric for tracking welfare year over year.
Sea Phase Losses
70.3M
15.3% loss rate
Smolt Phase Losses
169.6M
26.9% loss rate
Sea Loss Rate
15.3%
of smolt put to sea
Smolt Loss Rate
26.9%
of juveniles produced
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Norwegian Government Target
Goal: reduce sea losses to 5%
Norway's government has set a target of reducing salmon sea losses to
5% of all fish put to sea.
In 2024, the industry lost 70.3 million fish — nearly three times the 23.0 million that would be lost at the 5% target. That's 47.3 million excess losses every year above the government's goal.
The percentage hides the scale — this is hundreds of thousands of fish lost above target every single day.
5% goal · 0.0M fish
0%0.0% · 0.0M fish25%
At 5% Target
0.0M fish
would be lost if industry hit the goal
Actual Losses
0.0M fish
lost at sea in 2024
Excess Losses
0.0M fish
lost above the 5% target
Gap to Target
0.0pp
percentage points above 5%
01 — 2024 At A Glance
The numbers behind Norwegian salmon
Smolt Put To Sea
460.0M
juvenile fish released
↑ +1.8% vs 2023
Sea Phase Losses
70.3M
lost in sea cages
↓ -2.4% vs 2023
Sea Loss Rate
15.3%
of fish put to sea
↓ -0.6pp vs 2023
Smolt Phase Losses
169.6M
juveniles lost on land
↑ +7.6% vs 2023
Production Sold
3.30M t
tonnes round weight
↑ +0.9% vs 2023
Cleaner Fish Used
22.5M
wrasse & lumpfish
↓ -25.5% vs 2023
Industry Revenue
109.5B NOK
total sales value
↓ -3.5% vs 2023
Farm Escapes
39,300
fish escaped to sea
↑ +135% vs 2023
02 — Is It Getting Better?
Sea loss rate has barely improved in 30 years
Despite industry promises of better welfare, the share of fish lost
at sea has fluctuated between 13–22% since the mid-1990s. In 2024, 15.3%
of all fish put to sea were lost.
Sea Phase Loss Rate
Losses as % of smolt put to sea — 1994–2024
03 — Scale of Loss
More production, more loss
As the industry has scaled from under 100 million to nearly 500 million fish
put to sea, the absolute number of losses has grown in lockstep. From 10 million
fish lost in 1994 to 70 million in 2024.
Fish Put to Sea vs. Fish Lost at Sea
Millions of fish — 1994–2024
04 — The Hidden Cost
170 million juveniles are lost before reaching the sea
The smolt and juvenile phase is hidden from public eyes. Yet in 2024, losses
in land-based facilities were more than double the losses at sea.
These fish are lost in hatcheries and smolt facilities from disease, handling,
and production failures.
Sea Phase vs. Smolt Phase Losses
Millions of fish lost — 2005–2024 (stacked)
05 — What the Veterinary Institute Says
Disease, injuries, and unknown causes dominate mortality
The Veterinary Institute's 2024 fish health report breaks down mortality — fish confirmed dead — by cause.
Infectious disease, injuries and trauma, and deaths of unknown cause together account for most recorded mortality events in Norwegian aquaculture.
Key findings from Fiskehelserapporten 2024
Veterinærinstituttet · Report 1a – 2025
The Norwegian government has set a target to reduce sea losses to 5%
across all farmed species — roughly a third of the current level. The Veterinary Institute reports
mortality (confirmed deaths) using cause-of-death
data from the AquaCloud industry database, covering approximately
47% of active sea localities in 2024. The figures below show
the share of registered dead fish by cause of death — not real industry-wide prevalence — and highlight the main categories:
The same report also breaks mortality down by specific named cause rather than broad category.
In that finer breakdown, the top three causes of death were winter sores
caused by the bacterium Moritella viscosa (13%), unspecified handling injuries
(12%), and unknown specific cause (12%) — a subset of the 21.2% unknown category above where no further detail was recorded.
A notable new entry: jellyfish damage accounted for ~75% of the 8.8% environmental category — driven by a marine heatwave in northern waters.
Finnmark's extreme loss rate is partly explained by having very few active localities,
meaning individual catastrophic events weigh heavily on the regional statistics.
ISA remains elevated. Lice violations nearly doubled in 2024.
Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) has remained persistently elevated since 2020, recording 21 cases in both 2023 and 2024 — compared to a low of 6 in 2019.
Pancreas Disease (PD) peaked at 159 cases in 2020 and has declined since. Meanwhile, lice limit violations
nearly doubled from 556 in 2023 to 1,092 in 2024 — the highest since 2019.
A 4x difference in loss rate between Norway's best and worst regions
Nordland has the lowest loss rate (7.6%) while producing 360,000 tonnes.
Finnmark loses 30% of all fish put to sea — four times worse. For every 1,000 tonnes
produced, Finnmark loses 85,000 fish while Nordland loses just 21,000. But is this
about farm density, or something else entirely?
Loss Rate vs. Production by Region
2024 — loss rate % (bar) with production volume overlay (line) · Source: Fiskeridirektoratet
Who Produces vs. Who Kills
Each region's share of national production vs. share of losses
Efficiency: Losses per 1,000t Produced
Fish lost (×1000) for every 1,000 tonnes of salmon sold
Farm Clustering vs. Loss Rate — Does Proximity Matter?iHow this is calculatedFarm GPS coordinates are taken from a mid-year snapshot (week 26) of the Barentswatch API. Farms are grouped into regions by latitude band. For each farm, the straight-line (Haversine) distance to every other farm in the same region is measured, and the shortest distance — its nearest neighbour — is kept. These per-farm nearest-neighbour distances are then averaged across all farms in the region. A lower value means farms are genuinely clustered close together.
Avg. distance to nearest neighbouring farm (km) vs. sea loss rate · bubble = production volume · Source: Barentswatch API
Best: Nordland
7.6%
loss rate · 360kt produced · 217 active localities
Worst: Finnmark
30.0%
loss rate · 128kt produced · 83 active localities
Most Losses: Vestland
15.9M
fish lost · 386kt produced · 273 active localities
Most Localities: Vestland
273
active farm sites · more than any other region in 2024
08 — Cleaner Fish
Millions of fish used as living lice-removers
The industry deploys wrasse and lumpfish into salmon cages to eat sea lice.
Usage peaked at 61 million in 2019 but has since declined to 22.5 million in 2024,
partly due to high cleaner fish loss rates and a shift toward mechanical delousing.
Cleaner Fish Deployed Per Year
Millions of individuals — 1998–2024
Explore Further
See every farm. Updated weekly.
Explore the live map of all salmon farming localities along the Norwegian coast
with weekly lice counts, disease status, and treatment data from Barentswatch.