Wailing over wild salmon numbers

Dear Sir, There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth lately over the decline in wild salmon numbers returning to Scottish rivers.

One report listed possible causes, such as climate change, but nowhere did it mention the alarming rise in seal numbers round our coasts (from 50,000 to 200,000 and rising, according to one estimate).

According to Scottish fishermen, seals take 200,000 tonnes of fish a year from our waters, more than the quota allowed by the EU for Scottish fishermen to catch.

When, as a student in the 1950s, I worked as a boatman at the Venture station on the Tay, I often saw salmon in our catch with large chunks bitten out of them by seals. And those were the ones that got away. How many were being killed and eaten by seals even then, when there were regular culls?

There has been a great outcry by the usual suspects against any kind of cull. No doubt the same people will be objecting to a cull in the Orkneys of non-native stoats which have been causing havoc amongst nesting seabirds.

Farmers have long been hogtied by government regulations banning the use of long lists of chemicals, weedkillers and fertilisers. At the same time, long-gone animals such as the beaver, the wolf and the bear have either been re-introduced already or could well be roaming our countryside soon. Badgers are suspected of transmitting tuberculosis to cattle, yet the green lobby are up in arms at any mention of a cull or control.

The drive to create wetlands all over the UK has led to the neglect of centuries-old drainage systems leading to an increase in flooding. Farmers are encouraged to take land out of cultivation to provide habitats for plants, insects and animals.

Our ancestors over many centuries have transformed the British Isles from forest and marsh-covered wildernesses into a land fit for human habitation. Now our politically correct townies are hell-bent on undoing all that work in the name of conservation.

Do we really want the return of huge areas of marshland with all the dangers to life, such as mosquitoes and their accompanying diseases, that entails? Do we really want to see large numbers of trees destroyed and river banks undermined by beavers, while sheep and other livestock are devoured by wolves and bears?

There has to be a balance and we have to use common sense. Protect the wildlife we have here already and prevent the over-commercialisation of our land and surrounding seas, but do not cripple our farmers and fishermen with overzealous encouragement of such as seals or the impetuous introduction of predators from our wilder, less prosperous and more perilous past. George K Macmillan Mount Tabor Avenue

John Eoin Douglas Name and address supplied