For the second time in seven years, workers at Cooke Aquaculture's salmon hatchery in Bingham, Maine have been caught on camera abusing fish. A new undercover video — recorded between September and December 2025 by an Animal Outlook investigator working as a hatchery technician — shows staff clubbing salmon with metal poles, kicking fish as they writhe on the ground, and cutting into living animals. Widespread deformities and fungal infections were also documented throughout the facility.

This is not an isolated incident. In 2019, a nearly identical undercover video from the same farm showed deformed salmon thrown into containers where they suffocated. Seven years later, nothing has changed. Jareb Gleckel, director of legal advocacy at Animal Outlook, said the mistreatment is "about as bad as it gets" and called the situation "a systemic issue" at a facility with "no oversight."

Jena Questen, former president of the World Aquatic Veterinary Medical Association, reviewed the footage and submitted a formal affidavit calling the treatment "inhumane." She concluded that the fish would likely "continue to experience unnecessary and avoidable suffering until substantial corrective measures are implemented."

Maine's Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry has opened an investigation. That's a start — but it is not enough. We are calling on Maine regulators and the state Attorney General to pursue criminal animal cruelty charges against Cooke Aquaculture, and on the Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) program to immediately revoke the "True North" certification it granted this facility.

A company that has been documented abusing animals twice at the same farm — and faces no meaningful consequences — will keep doing it. Sign to demand real accountability.

Photograph: Courtesy Animal Outlook