Sea-lice outbreak on Icelandic salmon farm a ‘welfare disaster’, footage shows

Drone images of cages shot by activist reveal open sores affecting up to 1m fish'. Fish producers are now culling them for animal feed

Images of severely diseased, dead and dying salmon at an Icelandic fish farm, obtained by the Guardian, have been described by one veterinary expert as an animal welfare disaster" on a scale never previously seen.

The drone footage, shot last week over an open-pen sea cage in the country's remote Westfjords region, shows salmon suffering from such a severe infestation of sea lice that huge numbers of the fish are having to be prematurely slaughtered.