More than five tonnes of an antibiotic were used in Tasmanian salmon farms last summer to fight a disease that killed thousands of tonnes of fish, the ABC has reported.
The industry body, Salmon Tasmania, confirmed the amount of the antibiotic, florfenicol, used between November 2025 and March 2026, according to the ABC report. The treatment was administered under a temporary federal emergency permit to combat a bacterial outbreak.
Data from Tasmania’s Environment Protection Authority (EPA) shows more than 9,000 tonnes of salmon died in the first three months of 2026. An April report from Pulse Tasmania noted these mortalities occurred across January, February, and March. The deaths were linked to the bacterium Piscirickettsia salmonis, which causes salmonid rickettsial septicaemia.
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) originally granted the emergency permit for florfenicol in November 2025 to manage the disease outbreak, as reported by The Guardian. However, the authority suspended the permit on March 4, 2026, citing an “unacceptable risk” to other marine species after the antibiotic was detected in wild fish.
In a media release on Tuesday, the Tasmanian Greens stated that 5.3 tonnes of the antibiotic were “dumped into Tasmanian waterways”.
Following the treatment period, the EPA conducted an extensive environmental assessment. In a statement in May 2026, the EPA said its final assessment, which drew on over 4,200 samples, found the antibiotic use posed a “low risk” of causing unacceptable environmental harm. EPA Director Catherine Murdoch said the assessment showed most of the antibiotic was taken up by the fish, with very little reaching the surrounding environment.
At the time, Salmon Tasmania CEO John Whittington welcomed the EPA’s findings, stating they aligned with science showing no impact on waterway health, Pulse Tasmania reported.
The original ABC News story can be found at abc.net.au/news.