The North Atlantic Wild Salmon breeds in freshwater. Tiny juvenile fish go to sea and there
grow into the world renowned game fish that give such sport when returning to spawn
in their natal areas.

Management

In freshwater, wild salmon in Scotland are managed by local fishery boards advised by expert
biologists. Policy is driven by vested interest and detailed knowledge as members own fishing
rights or live in the local area. Local knowledge is important as salmon have adapted to
prevailing conditions and genetically vary from one N Atlantic host country to another, from
river to river and even within different geographical reaches of a single river. Members give
their time free and meet without charge on private property. Thus Scotland enjoys good cost
effective freshwater management that countries, organized on region or national level, cannot
match. Contrast this with zero dedicated salmon management in the Atlantic ocean; only half a
job being done.

The Food Chain

Salmon food chain includes sand eels and juvenile marine fish, such as cod. They grow from
minnows to monsters and can reach 50 or more pounds in weight, (22+Kgs) subject to food
availability. Unfortunately, the produce of the sea is being hoovered up to satisfy the needs of
farmed Atlantic salmon (same diet), Man’s personal diet and to drive turbines with the energy
source of sand eel carcasses. Heavy use of sand eels jeopardizes marine birds.  The fate of the
cod is an example of what happens to a salmon food chain species when politicians fail to
balance stock conservation with exploitation.

Dwindling Cod Stocks

In 1968 with modern otter trawls and fish finders, 810,000 tons of cod were caught off
Labrador, nearly 3 times more than had ever been caught in a single previous year. The cod
fishery off Newfoundland was closed by Canada in 1992 when stocks dramatically collapsed
to less than a quarter of their status 14 years before. In sparsely populated Newfoundland,
with little other industry, 30,000 were thrown out of work immediately. The cod stocks have
not recovered. Failing to learn from example, a similar story can be told in USA.  A five foot
wooden cod in the Massachusetts statehouse symbolizes the importance of cod to the founding
fathers. But cod don’t grow to 5 feet anymore; they are caught before they have the chance
and stocks on the Georges banks are in big trouble.  Have those twin warnings about cod (and
other fish stock collapses from over exploitation) been heeded in our own North Sea?   “No.”
I have witnessed countless Ministers returning from bargaining with their Euro counterparts
bravely stating they have squeezed a few extra tons of catch for our sea based fishery industry.
But it’s all “double speak” for  “ I have disregarded the advice of international scientists to
advance the date of dramatic stock collapses, ending your jobs, the lives of sea birds and other
fish species like salmon. I have done this to curry votes from those demanding Cod and Chips,
cheap farmed salmon, cat food tins full of immature fish or the burning of sand eel carcasses to
make electricity. Jam to-day folks, am I not a Wow?”

Jobs at stake

The burgeoning farmed salmon business provides jobs and demands an ever larger proportion
of the finite saltwater feed resource. Heavy investment and jobs are at stake in marine fishing. 
Wild salmon provide jobs and very significant sport tourist income in host countries. (In
Scotland, freshwater fishing in all its forms is an even more valuable source of national income
than golf.) Keeping the balance between competing interests in the sea is the job of the
politician on both sides of the Atlantic and he has failed. A recent front page headline warns
that the N Sea will be a totally empty food larder by 2050.

"I'm sorry, I haven't a clue"

The chief Scottish scientist recently mentioned how many river miles we enjoyed in Scotland. I
asked him for more useful management information. “How many miles has Man cut off from
migrating fish and how many juvenile fish can no longer be produced”? The answer could only
have pleased Humphrey Lyttleton’s  radio spot   “I’m sorry I haven’t a clue”. Removal of Man
made barriers to migratory fish seems fundamental as does regular Review of appropriate river
angling seasons as the number and timing of salmon returning from the sea alters. Nor does
government publish angling season records before the next season’s management plan has had
to be made. Fishery Boards lobby away about these things. They urge anglers to ever higher
levels of conservation, especially of the most endangered sub species, the early returning
“Springers”. They support land use change toward more vegetation to mitigate erosive flooding
from global warming cloudburst and to increase juvenile densities with increased in river feed
levels.

The 'Domino Effect'

In the sea, the laissez-faire policy is seen to be unsustainable. The problem is not just about
salmon and sea birds. Their plight points up the urgent need for management of the interaction
between species to avoid a domino effect in which over exploitation of one species adversely
affects the health of another. Global warming will allow rape of the Artic larder as the
protective ice cover melts. To avoid that, all the countries hosting the wild Atlantic salmon from
the pole to the southernmost range of the fish, (Pyrenees on the east and Connecticut river in
USA ) have to agree a common management policy. Chomping through your Xmas Gobbler or
sweating inside your Santa Claus habit, informed voters must insist that such a policy be
determined now. Any wishy washy drifting assures a smokescreen of political Codswallop,
masking ecological disaster.

Counting the salmon

Wild salmon are a very good judge of Atlantic marine resource management. For the salmon
transit huge distances across the pond. They have a very wide diet and when they return to
freshwater their number and their condition can be counted and assessed. Increasing numbers,
returning in good condition and the Atlantic larder is in shape. But, whilst numbers decline we
know from the Canadian, US and UK experience that we are failing our Christmas children

Jgs Dec 06