Salmon decline must be tackled

SIR, – It is not just the Spey which is suffering terminal decline as a top destination for anglers, but many of the once-famous Scottish salmon rivers.

The late Orri Vigfusson, founder and chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (in a letter to The Press and Journal, dated February 11 2016) recorded a “rod and line” Icelandic catch in the previous year of 75,000 salmon.

Scotland’s salmon river catch has reduced from 120,000 per annum in the 20th century to fewer than 60,000 salmon per annum in the past few years.

Orri Vigfusson in his letter calculated that salmon-angling tourism provides £1,000 per salmon caught and more than 1,000 full-time jobs to the rural economy.

Scotland’s economy cannot afford to neglect the example set by other salmon angling countries who lure away this once major Scottish tourist industry.

River owners and gillies in Iceland have accepted that, as a result of climate change storms flooding out the salmon river breeding pools and salmon ova, and the increase in natural predators, less than 1% of salmon ova laid in rivers reach maturity as smolts for sea migration. Many river owners and government scientists consider hatchery grown salmon ova to smolts are unnatural. The Scottish Government’s environmental chief, Roseanna Cunningham, and the Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy, Fergus Ewing, should not overlook the fact that more than 80% of salmon ova, hatched and grown in salmon hatcheries, achieve migration to sea after three or four weeks’ protection from predators in the river.

“Naturally” grown salmon in rivers, and those “artificially” reared in hatcheries during their fresh water life, are identical in “catch” and “play”, as salmon, for the angler – and taste the same for the consumer. Mark Pattinson, Brynaport, Kishorn, Ross-shire