The Clyde comeback king
The story of the River Clyde’s salmon is a small glimmer of hope, but there remains much work to be done to bring these silvers back from the brink, says
During the 19th century, Glasgow transformed from a small merchant town into a major industrial city. But although the boom in cotton, chemicals, paper and soap brought enormous economic benefits, the arrival of these heavy industries took a toll on the natural environment. Among the casualties were the Clyde’s wild salmon population, which declined steeply in response to pollution and physical alterations to the river that interfered with the species’ annual migration upriver to spawn.
They were a grieved loss: salmon were closely associated with the city in its earliest days – so much so that three of them feature on the city’s coat of arms. But, over time, thanks to ecological restoration work and the decline of the most polluting industries, they have slowly begun to return. ‘Salmon were probably extinct in the Clyde system for around 100 years before they started to return in numbers in the 1980s,’ explains Willie Yeoman, director of the
Clyde River Foundation, a charity that researches the ecology of the river and its tributaries, and works to raise awareness and understanding of these issues throughout the river catchment area.
The Clyde, he says, ‘is one of the great rivers of the world, with one-third of Scotland’s population in its eight counties. We may well have the most urban Atlantic salmon fishery in the world, and we are pulling together to protect and enhance it. Our scientific studies show us that the range of the salmon is increasing as dams and weirs are made passable and there is a network of angling clubs managing the fishery.’
One of the foundation’s recent projects saw a fish pass installed at the site of an old weir in Quarrier’s Village, Inverclyde, in 2019; even before construction had been completed, adult salmon were seen ascending into waters new. By the following summer, their success was officially confirmed: juvenile salmon were detected upstream for the first time in 120 years.
The return of this key indicator species offers, he says, ‘a powerful message’ of hope, at a time when wild Atlantic salmon stocks have been dwindling around the country. The Missing Salmon Alliance, a multi-agency collective of conservation, angling and fisheries experts, estimates that numbers of adult salmon have declined by more than 50% – and by as much as 88% in some regions – since the 1970s.
An assessment by NatureScot – the agency formerly known as Scottish Natural Heritage – recently found that despite the closure of coastal netting fisheries and the introduction of catch and release policies in some rivers slowing the salmon population’s freefall, this has not yet brought about a reversal of fortunes. There is widespread concern that wild salmon may become endangered within a decade, and even extinct within two or three, largely thanks to climate change and habitat destruction. Disturbance from bottom trawling is also considered a significant contributing factor.
A major NatureScot marine assessment published earlier this year warned that salmon numbers in Scottish waters are continuing to fall ‘despite significant reductions in exploitation’, and was the result of a ‘marked increase in the natural mortality of salmon at sea’, partly due to warming waters. The Atlantic Salmon Trust, a member of the Missing Salmon Alliance, says that of every 100 salmon that leave our rivers for the sea, less than five will return.
The story of the Clyde’s salmon, then, is a rare glint of light in a very gloomy landscape – and one Willie Yeoman hopes will offer inspiration for a new generation of nature lovers. In collaboration with the Smithsonian Museum in New York, the Missing Salmon Alliance and other international salmon conservation projects, Willie and his organisation have been running a ‘Salmon School’ for Glasgow primary school pupils, teaching children about the lifecycle of the salmon and the environmental factors that affect them.
For every 100 salmon that leave our rivers for the sea, less than five will return
The programme has been met with an ‘overwhelming’ response: 26 schools have signed up to send a class of ten- or eleven-year-olds to spend a half day on a local riverbank. There, they will be taught to survey the habitat and fish population, and to take a set of DNA samples. ‘Every child sees a fish being caught by scientists. Every child gets into the river – or at least close – and we make them aware of the importance of the surroundings of the river to how it functions.’
The work is an extension of the educational outreach programmes run by the Clyde River Foundation over the last twenty years, during which their ‘Clyde in the Classroom’ project saw 35,000 schoolchildren learn to rear trout eggs in their classrooms. But although that’s been an effective teaching aid, he says, ‘it’s highly likely that fewer than half of those children have ever stepped into a river.’
Catching the fish is usually the highlight of the new workshops: ‘the children are usually vocal and excited,’ he says. ‘Fish are well camouflaged as they go about their daily business, so bringing them briefly out of their natural environment and into a tank is a very powerful visual experience for the children. We get shouting and pointing, sometimes jumping up and down. Salmon, trout and eels have big stories to tell.’
The hands-on nature of the project is crucial, he says: ‘If we want to conserve our rivers and their inhabitants, and to engender a sense of ownership among young people, then we have to be able to show them what we’re saving at first hand. The return of salmon to the Clyde is one of the great good news stories in freshwater biology but there are still places where the fish should be able to reach but can’t, usually due to artificial weirs and barriers or poor water quality.’
‘Each school will also collect two water samples, which will be carefully filtered, and the resulting data submitted to a global citizen science project,’ adds Mark Bilsby, CEO of the Atlantic Salmon Trust. ‘The teachers that took part will be encouraged to connect with schools in the Pacific and Eastern seaboard of the Atlantic and represent their collective views on wild salmon, rivers and their local community to further learn about wild salmon, their life-cycle and the factors affecting them.’
After the project’s completion, the data will be collated and analysed ahead of COP26, the UN climate summit that will be hosted in Glasgow in November this year – during which time all eyes, from all around the world, will be on Glasgow.
Let’s hope that the international delegates who gather there make significant progress – not just for the sake of the salmon, suffering in our warming waters, but for our own sakes as well.