Salmon Conservation

This section of the site is dedicated to information and comment regarding salmon conservation, fishery management  and good practice for the protection of future salmon stocks.

During the last 30 years the numbers of wild salmon returning from the sea have fallen by more than half. The Atlantic Salmon Trust is an Atlantic wide organisation involved in the funding and sponsorship of practical research programmes tackling the problems wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout face today.  They cite a number of threats faced by our Atlantic salmon and sea trout:

At Sea

• Climate changes affecting feeding and survival opportunities
• Fishing, including unintentional capture when fishing for other species

On the Coast

• Interceptory mixed stock nets
• Fish farms - sea lice, disease and escapees
• Seals and dolphins
• Pollution

In the Rivers

• Cormorants and sawbill ducks
• Seals and otters
• Pollution and poor habitat
• Obstructions such as dams, weirs and culverts
• Disease
• Poor angling practices
• Poachers

Voluntary catch & release is the single most important conservation contribution that individual salmon anglers can make to the protection of future salmon stocks.

For more information on salmon and sea trout conservation visit the Atlantic Salmon Trust website: www.atlanticsalmontrust.org

Left and centre images by kind permission of Helen Bailey, right image by kind permission Andrew Dowsett.