Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 20 on 10/04/2005.

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Salmon killers on the loose

Wild salmon are under threat from among other things, pollution and hundreds of thousands of farmed salmon that have escaped and are causing mayhem. Graham Holliday reports

Scotland’s salmon are famed internationally, but the species is under threat. Many rivers where salmon could once commonly be seen leaping are seeing fewer and fewer fish.

In January 2005, the World Wildlife Fund published their Marine Health Check. It concluded that Atlantic Salmon are in ‘significant decline’ within the United Kingdom. Scotland boasts 80 per cent of the UK’s Atlantic salmon and is Europe’s largest haven for the species.

However, salmon levels are now a third less than the levels recorded in the 1960s and 1970s. Female salmon lay up to 15,000 eggs in the upper reaches of shallow freshwater rivers in late October and February. The small fry remain river bound for up to three years when they are known as parr. In the second, third or fourth year they grow into smolts where their fins turn black and they begin to take on the distinctive silvery hue.

They then begin their journey to the sea before returning home, sometimes leaping three metre high waterfalls, to repeat the life cycle.

The numbers of returning salmon is reducing and human intrusion is a key cause. In January nearly 700,000 farmed salmon escaped during heavy storms. Only around 58,000 of those were confirmed dead, the rest are now swimming in the Scotland’s waterways causing potentially serious harm to the wild population.

“It is not merely the number of farmed salmon that escaped but the activities of those that may survive,” says Laura Bateson, joint marine programme officer for Scottish W.....

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By Graham Holiday

Section : Scottish Wildlife

Page number : 22