Job cuts as estates hit by salmon catch crisis

SCOTTISH anglers have faced a disastrous salmon season with some beats recording no catches at all.

The number of fish reeled in has been so low that some estates have stopped selling permits for once-popular beats because there is nothing to catch.

Tourism has been hit, sales of salmon tackle have slumped and ghillies have lost their jobs.

Some stretches on rivers such as the Spey and the Nith recorded no salmon at all being caught during the entire season.

Only two were caught on the River Fyne in Argyll this year, where once more than 700 were caught each season.

Andrew Flitcroft, editor of Trout and Salmon magazine, said: ‘This has been the worst season I’ve witin nessed in my lifetime. On the back of last season, it’s a worrying trend.

‘Ghillies are losing their jobs because if the estates or the people who own the fishing aren’t getting the rods they can’t keep the ghillies on.’

Scottish salmon numbers have fallen by around 70 per cent in the last 25 years.

Figures from the 1960s show that on a good year up to 30 per cent of salmon would return from their first year at sea, with the average being around 15 to 18 per cent.

The numbers now are around 3 to 5 per cent.

Professor Ken Whelan, research director at the Atlantic Salmon Trust, is working on the Missing Salmon Project aimed at gathering data to show what is killing Scotland’s wild salmon.

He said: ‘Absolutely there’s a crisis salmon fishing. What we have now is a situation where you’re looking at very modest numbers of fish coming back and you really can’t afford to lose any from man-made effects.

‘In Scotland we’re so dependent on surpluses of salmon in order to provide good angling.

‘We’re now at a situation where we’re looking at the numbers of fish coming back being just about enough to reproduce and provide juvenile fish for the river.

‘So anglers are seeing a big drop in terms of catches. We have the combination of low numbers of fish and this incredible year in terms of water levels so it was an unholy alliance.’

Professor Whelan added: ‘Nobody knows exactly how steep the decline is going to be here but it’s been extraordinarily steep over the past two or three decades.’

It is feared that rising temperatures have badly hit the salmon’s feeding grounds with related changes in current patterns also affecting their migration.

Salmon may also be lost to fishing fleets as they cross paths with shoals of mackerel or herring.

Before they reach the Atlantic, smolts are likely to fall prey to birds such as cormorants and goosanders. Smolts are also threatened by sea lice infection, a significant problem near the fish farms in the West of Scotland.

Meanwhile a Scottish salmon company used by Britain’s top chefs has seen a third of the fish at its flagship farm die in one month.

Staff at Loch Duart salmon farm based in Sutherland and the Hebrides witnessed what is thought to be the highest monthly mortality rate ever documented, after 30 per cent of fish died at its Loch Laxford farm in September.

The firm blamed a ‘perfect storm’ of disease, suffocation and a freak jellyfish attack.

‘Worst season I have witnessed’