Wild Atlantic Salmon stocks are depleting year on year with frightening proportions. A recent BBC documentary narrated by Sir David Attenborough stated that migratory salmon numbers in the British Isles are declining so fast, they will be extinct in the next 20 years.

There is suggestion global warming is to blame by pushing migratory salmon feeding grounds South. This doesn’t explain why they wouldn’t return as they should, to their original spawning grounds each year, as has been done for thousands of years. 

Key issue one - The sheer volume of mass producing reared salmon farms all around our coastal waters. Farms that have been heavily criticised for the over crowding in these cages resulting in disease on a monumental scale. Wild Atlantic salmon pass through these waters and pick up sea lice and disease. This is allowed due to reared salmon driving financial gain. Evidence is documented as to the impact these farms have on wild salmon stocks.

Key issue two - Hundreds if not thousands of foreign and British fishing vessels are trawling and or using huge nets to catch fish in the migratory runs of Scottish Atlantic salmon. There is now proof this occurs and likely the most significant cause of declining wild Atlantic salmon numbers returning to their native rivers all over Scotland. This happens either intentionally or through by catching (targeting other species).

The ask is that the Scottish Govt take immediate action in moving the mass producing salmon farms on land, into tanks as in practised in Norway. To also move to stop  all fishing vessels either catching Atlantic salmon intentionally or through by-catching in the Northern North Sea between Scotland, Iceland and Norway.

If nothing happens and these activities continue unabated, the severe downward spiral in terms of The Atlantic salmon returning to their spawning grounds will continue. Countries globally have acted upon multiple endangered species eradication successfully in the past. It is now time the Scottish Government do the same before we resign Atlantic salmon to the history books.

These images are taken from a Norwegian Government body showing Atlantic Salmon migratory routes versus trawler vessel movement in 2021.