£700,000 bid to Save Our Salmon
New funding ‘will tackle threats to plunging stocks’
a funding package worth £700,000 is set to tackle a slump in the number of wild salmon in Scottish waters.
The cash announced yesterday by the Scottish government is designed to address falling survival rates and safeguard stocks.
it comes amid growing concern about salmon numbers being depleted by diseases.
Ministers said survival rates for salmon at sea have fallen to 5 per cent and the latest funding will be spent on research and fisheries management.
among the potential pressures identified are salmon farming, predation from other animals and pollution. Environment Secretary
‘Safeguard the future of species’
Roseanna Cunningham said: ‘We must do all we can to safeguard the future of this iconic species.
‘The survival rate of salmon during their marine phase has fallen from around 25 per cent to 5 per cent over the last 40 years.
‘This investment will accelerate and enhance work to try to quantify and mitigate a wide-ranging list of potential pressures on Scottish salmon stocks, such as forestry, hydro, barriers to migration, predation, illegal poaching, salmon farming, invasive non-native species, inshore and offshore developments and diffuse pollution.’
She added: ‘no single one of these, tackled alone, will secure recovery of wild salmon stocks.’
a total of £500,000 will be spent on a national programme of sam- pling to count juvenile salmon numbers in rivers before they head to sea and when they return.
a share of £200,000 is on offer for district salmon fishery boards to merge or set up boards to cut costs and improve effectiveness of fisheries management.
Earlier this week a Holyrood report concluded that Scotland’s salmon farming industry is unsustainable and could cause ‘irrecoverable damage’ to the environment.
The industry is worth £600million a year and is expected to expand massively in the next few years. But the report authors warned the planned expansion would ‘place huge pressures on the environment’ and said little progress has been made tackling these issues since 2002.
Concerns have been raised about the long-term viability of the growth amid fears that high mortality rates linked to a ‘crisis’ caused by sea lice will hit output and bring rising costs for producers.
The Holyrood environment committee report raises concerns that farmed salmon may contain a range of pathogens and parasites which may spread to wild fish, and this sparked calls for the government to act.
following yesterday’s announcement, the Scottish gamekeepers association’s fishing body said: ‘We hope the investment will be targeted at declining salmon rather than all being swallowed up in streamlining governance processes.
‘Conservation measures on rivers were the first steps taken by government, so tackling the many other factors identified in the announcement is now overdue.
‘The decisions of the Scottish government around fish farm expansion – currently being reviewed at Holyrood – will be an indicator as to the level of government commitment which exists to addressing wild salmon declines on the West Coast.’