It has been almost exactly two years since STANDARD last reported on the project: a huge indoor salmon farm costing 70 million euros was to be built in Gmünd in the northwestern Waldviertel. The company Waldlachs, which is behind the project, promised that 3,000 tons of salmon – a third of the domestic salmon requirement – should be farmed there every year, starting in 2026, in the most environmentally, climate and animal-friendly way possible. Lower Austria’s governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner saw the Waldviertel becoming a “culinary hotspot”, while Gmünd’s mayor Helga Rosenmayer saw her city becoming the “fish capital of Austria”. Many hoped for new jobs in the region, but animal rights activists warned of the suffering that salmon were exposed to in such “fish factories”.
