Letters may be edited for clarity or space
Low-hanging fruit
In reply to Nick Measham’s letter in the February issue [Act now or lose our salmon for good] and WildFish’s three-point plan: all good ‘low hanging fruits’ but sadly it is only tinkering around the edges and may do little to save our iconic salmon in the long term.
There are at least three more major points that must be tackled at the same time, and these have been ignored for far too long. First, the Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities by-laws around our coastal waters that allow shore netting almost on to the beach. Salmonids need protection from the river mouth and out into the oceans.
Secondly, and most importantly, thanks to research by Professor Ken Whelan and others based on the tagging of salmon smolts from Spain, France, Ireland and Scotland, it is now known where our smolts go at sea. The project was based on five years of work. The smolts go via the ‘smolt highway’ to the Vøring Plateau in the north Norwegian Sea to feed heavily for a few months around May, June and July each year before heading off to Icelandoperate at that time (in particular in June 2023) suggests there was a long line of these ships operating from the Shetland Islands up to the Vøring Plateau. It is little wonder that our smolts get almost wiped out. Therefore, there is a need to ban high sea netting in that area for two to three months of the year. The North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) should be the body to undertake this task.
