Local river problems need local solutions
My old cousin, who died the other day, had a particular dislike of goosanders. He was, let’s face it, an old fashioned countryman and the very idea that these huge, inedible sawbill ducks, notable for eating juvenile salmon should be legally protected, was something of a personal affront.
He, like most of his generation, had no qualms about reaching for the gun when the birds appeared.
“Good ‘duck’ drive this morning,” he would report, not daring to use the word goosander (or for that matter cormorant which he equally disliked) for fear someone was listening. Anyway, his occasional forays made no difference to their numbers. Populations of both species have been on the increase for years in Scotland.
Goosanders only arrived here in 1871, which puts them in the same bracket as a grey squirrel. Even the Scottish Government, ever fearful of upsetting the bird lobby, has agreed to a limited cull on the Tweed, Spey, Dee and Nith to see how much fish, particularly salmon, the birds are demolishing. (A lot, as anyone who has inspected the entrails of either bird will already know).
Given the crash in salmon numbers even a marginal impact on salmon stocks matters, although bird people warn against making cormorants and goosanders scapegoats. But when you hear someone like the renowned Tay ghillie George Mcinnes complaining salmon rivers have been researched to death and it’s time to revisit these protected species, may he not have a point? We have, after all, learnt that wholesale destruction of any species is not just bad PR, it also tends to be bad for the environment, so no one is suggesting they be obliterated. Yet we are bogged down by constant calls for studies which seldom satisfy both sides of any wildlife argument.
Report follows counter report to the point your average politician is so addled he or she will go along with whichever pressure group kicks hardest. Take a bow Chris Packham.
We don’t need more reports but common sense and judicious local management of local problems. Mcinnes argues there is little anglers can do about climate change at sea, considered a major factor in the decline of salmon. But river managers can do something about the increasing number of birds and animals which predate on juvenile fish. Our rivers are now almost universally pristine. Yet only 25 per cent of salmon smolts make it to the sea.
So if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck the chances are it’s a goosander. Or a cormorant. Still, as Mcinnes wryly notes, salmon would gain a deal more sympathy if they had beaks and wings. ■