SHOULD THIS CHRISTMAS FAVOURITE BE OFF YOUR TABLE THIS YEAR?

A PLATE of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, served with a glass of Bucks Fizz — it’s been Britain’s traditional breakfast on Christmas morning for as long as many of us can remember.

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But what used to be a once-a-year luxury has now become the most popular species of fish eaten in the UK, Europe, the US and Japan.

Approximately 3.5 million tonnes of salmon are consumed annually around the world. And in the UK alone, sales of salmon reached £1.5billion in the 12 months to August, accounting for almost a third of all fish consumed, according to the industry body, Salmon Scotland.

But low stocks of wild salmon especially the Atlantic variety native to our shores means that over 70% today comes instead from fish farms, according to the Global Salmon Farming Resistance, an alliance of activists, NGOs and scientists.

These mighty and nomadic creatures, whose natural instinct is to swim freely for thousands of miles, are forced to spend their entire lives in captivity.

The piscine equivalent of battery hens, they are born in hatcheries and then, at the “smolting” age, when they would normally migrate from the rivers of Scotland out to the North Atlantic Ocean, are confined to industrial-scale caged pens that, according to many experts, are breeding grounds for disease and cruelty.

Last month, the world’s leading producer of farmed salmon, Mowi, was stripped of its Royal Warrant meaning its products will be off the table this year at Sandringham where the King (a lifelong animal lover) and Royal Family traditionally gather for Christmas lunch.

The Royal Household does not comment on why companies are added or removed from its list, but the decision followed the emergence of filmed evidence showing “systemic cruelty” including fish being beaten to death at Mowi’s Loch Harport site on the Isle of Skye.