Decline of the Atlantic Salmon

By Kenneth M. Pierce

Offshore netters leave sport fishermen with empty creels

The very names evoke the lore and challenge of a classic individual sport: the Dee, the Tay, the Tweed. These famous fishing rivers of Scotland attract some 50,000 anglers a year, most of them lured by hopes of hooking the combative, and tasty, Atlantic salmon.

But this year fishermen are returning home from Scotland with little more than tales of the big ones they never saw, let alone those that got away. London's Daily Telegraph describes the salmon season, which began in January and continues until November, as "possibly the worst on record." Says a seasoned Scottish fishing guide: "Ye'll have observed that when Charles wants to give his Princess casting lessons he takes her doon to the Dee. But when he wants to catch fish, he makes awa' for Iceland." In fact, the Prince of Wales did better than most other anglers this year when he landed one salmon in only five days of fishing. On average, fishermen have had to spend 18 days in their waterproof wading gear this year before catching a single salmon.

The dearth of the highly prized game fish in Scottish rivers follows a decade-long decline in the total salmon catch of Scotland's sport and commercial fishermen. Between 1972 and 1976, the average annual haul was 1,571 metric tons (a metric ton is 2,205 lbs.), but in the five years ending in 1981, it fell to 1,184 metric tons. In Scotland, where laws concerning salmon fishing date from 1030, the decline is viewed as a national affront. Says Sir Andrew Gilchrist, former chairman of the Highlands and Islands Development Board: "The culmination of increasingly bad years is reducing the attraction of salmon fishing in Scotland to almost negligible proportions." Canada, Norway and the Republic of Ireland have also seen their salmon harvest fall in the past decade.

Says Larry Snead, a U.S. State Department expert on fisheries: "Worldwide, Atlantic salmon stocks are in trouble."

The fate of Salmo salar is linked to its peculiar life cycle. Like its larger cousin, the Pacific salmon, the Atlantic type hatches in fresh water. The parr, as the young fish are known, stay in their rivers until they reach a length of five to six inches, a process that may take several years. Then the salmon migrate to the sea and make their way to feeding grounds hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. Salmon that have spent several years at sea "run," or return to their native rivers, throughout the spring.

If they survive their far-flung travels, that is. Because the migratory patterns of Atlantic salmon are well known, commercial fishermen can easily catch the fish either at their feeding grounds or as they are about to return to their rivers. With increasing clamor, Scots are blaming the shortage of salmon in Scottish rivers on the perfectly legal, internationally negotiated agreements that allow fishermen from numerous European nations to net salmon in the open North Atlantic.

To limit fishing in the vast feeding grounds near Greenland, Atlantic nations first negotiated quota agreements in 1972. But schools of salmon born in Scotland often do not swim all the way to Greenland, preferring to feed closer to home near the Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago linked to Denmark. Between 1978 and 1980, the Faroese fishermen, who were not bound by any international pacts, increased their annual catch of salmon tenfold, to almost 1,000 metric tons.

In response, the ten-nation European Community pressed the Faroes to cut back their salmon fishing. An agreement was reached earlier this year, limiting the Faroes to 750 metric tons between October 1981 and May 1982, and to 625 metric tons the following season. In another accord, reached last January after four years of talks, the European Community, plus Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the U.S. and Canada, created regional commissions to regulate the interception of Atlantic salmon returning to their rivers. Says Alick Buchanan-Smith, Britain's Minister for Fisheries: "The intercepting fisheries, we believe, are quite wrong. They do nothing to increase the stocks of the fish." Britain is hoping to ban the netting of returning salmon altogether.

Despite these pressures on the salmon population, the species itself seems assured of continued existence. Successful techniques have been developed for the breeding of captive salmon in underwater cages. In Scotland, salmon farmers are expected to produce 2,000 metric tons of salmon this year and 4,000 metric tons by 1985.

That practice, however, offers no solace to sport fishermen. Captive salmon may taste like their unconfined brethren, but, since they never swim free, they are no substitute for the rapid-swimming fish who have tantalized fishermen for centuries in the pools and eddies of Scotland's wild streams.

--By Kenneth M. Pierce.

Reported by Tom Levenson/ London

With reporting by Tom Levenson

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