Caught, the humpback alien menacing our fish
FRESH fears for native salmon have been raised after an American ‘invader species’ was spotted trying to lay thousands of eggs.
The pink, or humpback salmon, was caught in one of Scotland’s key salmon rivers, the Spey – 18 miles inland and 10,000 miles from its home waters of Canada and Alaska.
She had enough eggs to create a generation of ‘aliens’ competing for food with the endangered Atlantic salmon.
The catch at Craigellachie, Moray, has deepened concerns about the devastating impact it could have on native salmon and the Scottish ecosystem. Fears surfaced six years ago after several pink salmon, a staple of grizzlies, were caught in British waters.
The breed is usually found in the colder climes of Canada and Alaska but over the past ten years some have been bred in Norway and Iceland.
Now more appear to be swimming across the North Sea to Scotland, prompting fears that they could breed with Atlantic salmon. An image of the hump- back was posted online by a Spey Fishery Board official, who wrote: ‘Another pink salmon caught on the Spey, the seventh I am aware of, another upriver fish.
‘What was interesting was that she was gravid.
‘Spawning was imminent. The relatively large size of the eggs was also of interest.’
Replying to the post, Dougie Ross, said: ‘The eggs were pouring out of that fish on the bank. At least 50 per cent were out of it before you got it.’ Kenny Morton wrote: ‘They’re here now, though. There will be no stopping them.
‘If anything I think they will have more of an impact on sea trout as they will be competing for food in the estuary when they get there.’
Yesterday, a board spokesman said: ‘This is the time of year they come up to spawn but we don’t want them to mix with Atlantic salmon as there is the fear that they could end up killing the native salmon.
‘Numbers are certainly a lot higher than they have ever been before. We are not sure why this is or whether it is down to climate change.
‘Or maybe they are spawn from former East Coast salmon and have come back to where they originated.
‘There have been about 800 pinks found which seem to have come from the Norwegian coastline and ended up in rivers along the East Coast of Scotland.
‘Quite a lot have been caught in the nets. There was one not too long ago 50 kilometres up from the river.
‘You can’t catch every single one of them and we don’t know how many are coming through, but we are hoping people can continue to keep an eye out for them.’
Pinks were originally introduced to a number of Russian rivers in the 1960s and have slowly spread westwards and colonised inland waters of northern Norway.
The Salmon and Trout Conservation Trust warned last month: ‘If they do begin to colonise and breed over here, that would create a major problem for native salmon, which are not doing very well as it is in terms of numbers.’
The pink salmon, which can reach 24in in length, live for two years. They are found in the Bering Sea and other Arctic waters.
Fishery groups have demanded action from the Scottish Government following the ‘unprecedented collapse’ of a salmon run.
This year’s number returning to the Awe, Argyll, is the lowest since records began in 1965 – down to around 270 from 807 the previous year.
Fisheries boards called for more Government controls to protect returning juvenile salmon against sea lice from fish farms.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The magnitude of any such impact is not known. Marine Scotland Science has recently commenced a project to address this issue.’
‘You can’t catch every single one’