Salmon damage

Andy Bing’s article (“Salmon farming is vital for nation’s future prosperity”, 16 June) paints a very rosy picture of the future of salmon farming making a massive contribution to Scottish jobs by increasing production currently from 170,000 tonnes of salmon supporting 8.800 jobs to 350,000 tonnes and 18,000 jobs by 2030.

Unfortunately, as the founder of a salmon farming business he naturally completely ignores the devastation that salmon farming is having on our wild salmon and sea trout because of the huge impact of sea lice which surround the fish farms and play havoc with the salmon smolts and young sea trout when they leave the rivers of their birth and when they return from their year or more at sea.

The wild salmon fishing, for which Scotland is famous, has for the past few years dramatically declined to about half the five-year average catch and the sea trout fishing particularly in places like Loch Maree has been virtually wiped out. We are now seeing articles in the angling magazines telling us it is time to fish the Tweed. Previously you could not get a booking on most of the top beats for love nor money – despite the cost of a day on a lot of these beats being between £300 and £800 a day!

I just wonder what impact this is having on jobs and the local economy, hotels, restaurants, B&BS and other local businesses?

MIKE MCKINNELL Hillview, Blackhall, Edinburgh