Source: Angling Trust
Although this year has been generally better than last year, recent official stock assessments in England, Wales and Scotland were all the worst on record – a dire situation whichever way you look at it! To make matters worse, angling is not the cause of declining salmon runs, and anglers are facing more and more regulations while little progress is being made to tackle the principal reasons for failing stocks.
The Angling Trust’s Save our Salmon Campaign will target three key areas, where they believe they can make a significant difference:
Netting
The Angling Trust believes the time has come to bring all commercial netting of salmon and sea-trout to an end, throughout the UK. These fish are much more valuable to the economy as quarry for anglers than they are to the nets, which support few jobs, but kill thousands of fish. The fact that our governments continue to allow netting at sea is being used by Greenlander and Faroese fishermen to justify an increase in salmon fishing in the Arctic! Even if we only win a reduction in the number of fish the nets can catch, it will make it easier/cheaper for people to buy them out at a local level.
Agricultural Pollution
Poor land management is one of the main factors suppressing salmon abundance. Intensification of dairy and arable farming and particularly the explosion of maize production for anaerobic digesters have led to vast quantities of soil (and floodwater) being washed into our rivers and out to sea. Soil smothers spawning gravels, irritates salmon gills and carries with it nutrients and pesticides that kill fly life and fish. It’s likely that a factor in poor sea survival is the impact of sub-lethal pollutants on smolts, making them less able to survive the transition from fresh to sea water. The Angling Trust will launch a campaign for government to make the £2 billion subsidy paid to farmers work much harder to protect the water environment.
Predation from Cormorants & Goosanders
The Angling Trust ran a successful campaign to manage the impact of cormorants and goosanders in England and our Fishery Management Advisors have been helping clubs and fishery owners throughout the country to protect their fish more effectively from these birds. The Angling Trust will campaign for this pilot project to continue, for the number of licences to be increased, and for a similar project to be implemented in Scotland and Wales.
For further details of the campaign and how to support it, click HERE
