Australia’s veterinary medicines regulator has suspended the use of florfenicol in salmon in Tasmania because of the “unacceptable risk” the antibiotic poses to other species.
The Bob Brown Foundation said the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority’s (APVMA) decision was an “indictment of the industrial fish farm companies and their complete disregard for the marine environment”.
The APVMA granted an emergency permit in November 2025 to allow the industry to use florfenicol to treat outbreaks of the bacterial disease piscirickettsiosis in fish farms in southern Tasmania, which had caused mass salmon deaths.
More than 1 million salmon died at Tasmanian fish farms in February 2025 in what authorities and the industry described as an “unprecedented” mass death triggered by an outbreak of Piscirickettsia salmonis bacteria.
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The authority notified the industry in February that it planned to suspend the permit after traces of the drug were found in wild fish species as much as 10km from the marine pens, unless the industry could provide evidence justifying its continued use.
“Information received by the APVMA on 2 March 2026 has been reviewed, and it has been concluded that there was no new data, or any evidence of measures that would address the APVMA’s concerns,” the authority said in a statement on Thursday.
“The product holder has been advised that the permit has been suspended and that the product can no longer be used under the provisions of the permit.”
Alistair Allan, an Antarctic and marine campaigner at the Bob Brown Foundation, said it was the right decision.
“The use of the antibiotic was deemed an unacceptable risk to other marine species, but the truth is that the industrial fish farms are an unacceptable risk, in everything they do, to marine species,” he said.
He said the “reckless use” of the antibiotic had been “met with huge community concern from day one”.
Guardian Australia has sought comment from Salmon Tasmania.
