HOW TO STOP SALMON DECLINE

In his article on the imposition of catch and release (Tales from the Riverbank, October 2016), Michael Wigan considers that the Government’s new policy will lead to the abandonment of the majority of Scotland’s salmon rivers.

Marine Scotland, the Government’s advisers on wild fishery policy, has yet to find a solution to the rapid disappearance of salmon from our rivers, and recently announced that last year’s record for caught salmon was the worst since records began. The problem is not only that 5% of salmon smolts (young fish which swim with the current, instead of against it) exiting the rivers as juvenile salmon will return after two years to the river, but less than 1% of salmon eggs laid in the rivers survive to smolts to exit rivers.

Salmon rivers, with ever increasing storms thanks to climate change, and an increasing number of protected predators, have become a death trap for juvenile salmon.

A solution is to follow the example of Iceland’s Rivers Ranga, which have no spawning beds, so salmon eggs are grown in hatcheries and released into the rivers as smolts, 90% of which make it to the sea. Around 400,000 smolts are released each year into these two small rivers, with 12,000 salmon caught annually, which are kept by the anglers. More salmon are now caught on rod and line in Iceland than in Scotland.

If the Scottish Government wants to prevent the rapid loss of many millions in angling revenue to Iceland, then we need to encourage the use of Scotland’s many hatcheries. Abandonment of salmon rivers need not happen if the rivers stock salmon smolts. Mark Pattinson, Kishorn, Ross-shire