DEBATE: DO SALMON FARMS IMPACT ON WILD SALMON?
A news article on Countryfile.com included comment from anglers and conservationists who dismissed a recent study by Dr Martin Jaffa that suggested salmon farms did not negatively impact on wild salmon numbers: countryfile.com/ wildlife/marine-life/new-salmonfarming-paper-dismissed/
Dr Jaffa responds:
The decline in salmon numbers is down to a range of factors but the most important is that since the early 1970s, the number of fish returning to rivers across the whole of their range, not just Scotland, has been in decline [based on anglers’ records of salmon catches]. During the 1980s, around 20% of migrating salmon returned; now the number is 2–3%. This applies to rivers where there is no salmon farming as it does to rivers located in the salmon farming areas. Small west coast rivers have only a small stock of fish and this decline impacted them faster than it did on the east coast.
The angling fraternity have, over the years, blamed everyone for the declines except their own actions. Even with catch-and-release being prevalent, anglers are still killing salmon across Scotland. Salmon farming has been blamed for the decline for years because it has been a convenient scapegoat to deflect attention from the angling sector.
Salmon farming really began to take off around 1980. Total Scottish production in 1982 was just under 1,000 tonnes (200,000 tonnes today). Clearly sea trout catches were in decline for the 30 years before then. I have repeatedly asked everyone from anglers to government scientists to explain how salmon farming can be blamed for this decline and as yet I have not had a single response.
The campaigning by Salmon and Trout Conservation to ban salmon farms will not save wild salmon. The real reasons for the decline, especially on the east coast where there are no salmon farms, has yet to be discovered.