Just standing idly by is not going to cut it any more

The migration routes of wild salmon from Scotland’s west coast are to be tracked for the first time in a bid to save the iconic fish.

Salmon numbers in Scotland’s rivers are perilously low and experts hope the landmark study of their epic journey from rivers on the west coast to the north Atlantic will help find new ways to protect the fish.

Their modern- day migration is filled with hazards including predators, commercial fish farms, pollution and obstacles in rivers. But now the Scottish Government has committed £ 750,000 for the second phase of the Missing Salmon Project to track hundreds of smolts (juvenile salmon) as they head for sea this year.

Mark Bilsby, chief executive of the Atlantic Salmon Trust – which is leading the project – said: “Salmon predate the last ice age and have been swimming around the Atlantic for a few million years. But w e’v e never known how the salmon from the west coast make that journey or what pressures they face along the way. This programme is set up to look at where the fish go. It’s a really big step forward.

“We know they have to go north and we know at some stage they’re going to hit the continental shelf but we don’t know how they get there and what challenges and pressures they face along that route. If we know where they go we can start to work out some of these things.

“The funding is re a l l y welcome and it shows that the Scottish Government is willing to act.” But, he added: “I think the biggest risk is apathy. There isn’t time to go and do 10 or 15 years of research. We need to get on with it. There’s no point in doing this for academic research, it is to get more effective management so we can recover the species. Just standing idly by is not going to cut it any more.”

Juvenile salmon will be tagged in up to six rivers then tracked using state- of- the art acoustic arrays to pick up their signal. Two arrays will be laid in the sea – one from Malin Head in Ireland to Isla and the other between Skye and the Uists. Mortality data will be collected from those which perish in rivers, and it will be compared to the figures for the original

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