Salmon fishermen have called for urgent action to protect wild salmon in Scotland after the lowest number recorded last year was caught.
The latest official data show that 35,693 Atlantic salmon were caught by fishermen in Scottish rivers last year, the lowest figure since records began in 1952 and only 75% of the average for the past five years.
The numbers of sea trout, a species that uses the same rivers as salmon, were also the lowest in history, with 12,636 and 77% of the last five-year average.
Graph showing autumn
Last year’s catch figures were affected by the Covid blockades during the spring of 2021, but the data is consistent with recent trends. In 2018, the last full year before the pandemic, wild salmon catches set the previous record low of just over 37,600. In 2010, fishermen caught more than 111,400 salmon.
Data has alarmed fishing experts and environmentalists. Wild salmon and trout are key species for many mammals and birds, and a sinking fish population is harming other creatures such as otters, ospreys and whiting, damaging the wider ecosystem.
Salmon are very sensitive to water temperature and reduced water purity. Its decline is seen as unequivocal evidence that the climate crisis, pollution, fish farming and industrial activities are causing widespread environmental damage.
Alan Wells, director of Fisheries Management Scotland, urged the Scottish government to accelerate its new strategies to improve and protect salmon stocks. “The latest figures show how serious the situation has become. We urge the government to meet its existing commitments without delay and to go much further in all areas where they have the power to make a difference,” he said.
In January, the government agreed that the wild salmon population was in crisis. He pledged to improve water quality, review the application of conservation laws, reduce conflicts with human activities at sea and in coastal areas, and strengthen marine conservation efforts.
Since the 1990s, Scottish fishermen have returned their catches to the river under a voluntary conservation code that is closely monitored by fishing organizations and ghillies, the experts who guide fishermen in many fishing rhythms.
In addition to the removal of dams and dams, the country’s district fishing boards have pledged to plant millions of native trees along thousands of miles of waterfront to reduce water temperature and reduce flooding. sudden. “Trees act as natural umbrellas,” Wells said.
Some fisheries have investigated the repopulation of heavily depopulated rivers with young salmon raised on local wild stock breeders, although the strategy remains controversial due to uncertainty about their survival rates.
Landowners and salmon experts along the Carron, a river that flows into Carron Lake in Wester Ross, north of Skye, believe that its reintroduction of farmed fish has saved its wild salmon population from near extinction.
A succession of high water or flooding in the Carron in the late 1990s ended the young salmon, leaving it with an average catch of five years of only 10 salmon. By 2020, it had risen to 187.
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Wells said repopulation programs could work on some rivers, but more emphasis needed to be placed on ensuring that rivers and the wider environment are improved and protected.
“There’s no gold bullet here,” he said. “What we need to do is take concerted action on a number of pressures and policy areas. To ensure that the bed and table for salmon are as good as possible, we maintain optimal water temperatures for to salmon “.