State of salmon: In the last issue of reLAKSation, I discussed one of the presentations from the Fisheries Management Scotland conference which was held in March but was only made available in August. This time I would like to discuss the second of the two presentations that I found of most interest. This concerns ‘the State of Scotland’s salmon’ as interpreted by Dr John Armstrong of the Marine Directorate’s Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory.
Dr Armstrong begins his presentation by telling the audience that he was not the bringer of good news as Scotland’s salmon are not in a good state. He then showed the graph of the time series of numbers of salmon returning to Scotland’s shores from 1971 to present. The graph shows that the numbers of returning fish have been in almost continuous decline from the start of the series. That is a period of over fifty years.
Dr Armstrong then expanded on the poor state of the stocks with reference to
- the almost disappearance of spring fish from Scottish rivers.
- the fact that those fish that do return appear smaller.
- the current conservation status of Scotland’s rivers.
Dr Armstrong however pointed out that it is important to note that in some areas there are some stocks that are sufficiently healthy and are in good conservation status.
Dr Armstrong said that ‘we have time, we need to act’.
I hope that Dr Armstrong will forgive me for saying but I believe that he has worked at the Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory for over 30 years, by which time salmon returns had already been in decline for over twenty years. Is it not a bit late to say that ‘we need to act’. Surely, someone must have been saying long ago that ‘we need to act’. Even when numbers crashed in 2010, didn’t anyone say, ‘we need to act’. I suspect not.
The problem is that the scientists at the Marine Directorate appear extremely reluctant to act. Instead, they dither about suggesting that ever more and more research is required before they can reach a decision. Dr Armstrong illustrates this point in his presentation when talking about the size of returning salmon. He shows a graph of the changing size of returning fish to the rivers Dee and North Esk from 1960 to 2020. The message is clear. However, Dr Armstrong goes on to say that ‘there’s a very important project kicked off funded by Scottish Government with Fisheries Management Scotland looking at collecting scales from salmon in selective catchments to improve our data in this area’. Why do we need even more data, we know the fish are getting smaller and clearly for reasons out at sea? The answer is simply no-one wants to take action, presumably because they are not confident in taking any decisions and more likely because they don’t want to upset the angling community.
Yet Dr Armstrong continues by asking what we can do about the state of Scotland’s salmon? He refers to an extremely unscientific study from 2021 where members from the wild salmon sector were asked to indicate which of a list of pressures, they thought applied to the wild salmon found in the rivers they managed and fish. Dr Armstrong says this is an example of the good work between the Marine Directorate and Fisheries Management Scotland. He said that the study has provided a good understanding of the pressures acting on wild salmon by using the best information available. In the same way, I am sure that Dr Armstrong would not be able to provide an example of good work between the Marine Directorate scientists and the salmon farming industry. I don’t think any such cooperation exists simply because of the negative approach Marine Directorate scientists have adopted towards the salmon farming industry, reflecting the views of the wild fish sector, with whom they prefer to collaborate.
As a result of this ‘research’ the Marine Directorate have a good idea of which pressures can be alleviated (as long as they don’t stop anglers fishing for salmon) and this is the focus of the wild salmon strategy and its implementation plan. In order to address any pressure, they have to assess its feasibility, its cost benefit and whether it can be prioritised, all of which ensures that it is the sea lice risk framework that remains as the main focus of Marine Directorate’s efforts because it is addressing a pressure that doesn’t affect anglers fishing for wild fish.
Dr Armstrong continued on describing the Wild Salmon Strategy and its implementation plan. This is being supported by the Wild Salmon Strategy’s Science and Evidence Board to bring together the best available evidence and to ensure that any research is identified in order to fill the gaps, because the Marine Directorate scientists critically need to know how best to move forward. The Board has representatives from across the wild salmon sector and importantly has the ‘excellent scientific support’ from the Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory, some ‘superb staff’ who really do understand salmon with decades of experience that can be brought to bear at this point in time. Ideal science has its part in this, of course it does said Dr Armstrong.
Dr Armstrong added that although many of these pressures have been researched for decades, precise answers are still not known and therefore it is vital the best available information is used. Marine Directorate scientists bring in scientific investigation where it is important and can have an effect in the time scales that are being worked to.
Dr Armstrong continues that they are not looking for the ideal, for the excellent outputs but rather for time limited delivery of targeted outputs so they can bring science and evidence to practical action as quickly as possible.
I am reminded of our future King’s speech to the 50th anniversary dinner of the Atlantic Salmon Trust. He said that in the 1980s one in four salmon returned to Scottish rivers and now the number is one in twenty but importantly, we don’t know why. The dinner took place in 2017, and yet despite the excellent scientific support from the Pitlochry Laboratory and its superb staff who really do understand salmon and have decades of experience, Dr Armstrong did not discuss why salmon are not returning to their home rivers. This is because the Marine Directorate expertise has been directed at the salmon farming industry rather than looking for reasons why salmon (and sea trout) are in decline across all of Scottish and beyond.
It seems that the Wild Salmon Strategy’s Science and Evidence Board are still not interested in directing their attention to this fundamental issue. Instead Dr Armstrong provides a list of proposed actions:
Dr Armstrong says that the Board have already provided guidance for curtailing angling when water temperatures become too high. However, guidance is just guidance, and we know guidance is often ignored by members of the angling fraternity. For example, the guidance for catch and release is regularly ignored as can be seen from the images regularly posted online.
Their second action is to ask whether there is a case for restocking when numbers are critically low. The issues of stocking have been discussed for years without any real decisions being taken. It seems likely that even when salmon stocks are almost on the point of extinction, Marine Directorate scientists will remain undecided on this issue.
The Board also want to see harmonisation and better coordination of salmon monitoring although it is not surprising that the Board consider this necessary given that even basic catch data is not published until May of the following year after the season has ended. In our digital world, surely real time reporting should not be impossible.
Dr Armstrong goes on to say that the Board want to issue guidance for adding large woody structures to rivers. Maybe this will involve chopping down all the trees the fishery boards are currently planting along the riverbanks.
The Board also want to model sequential pressures on salmon survival but having seen how the Marine Directorate’s modelling on sea lice dispersal has been applied, I question how this will really ensure wild salmon’s future.
The final action is to review sea lice thresholds as proposed by SEPA and Fisheries Management Scotland. Of course, it wouldn’t be a wild salmon plan without some action against salmon farming.
It is encouraging that all the resources of the Science and Evidence Board have been used to come up with these six actions. The wild salmon sector can be reassured that every effort is being directed at safeguarding wild salmon futures. Of course, I am actually being a bit facetious. If this is the best that decades of experience and excellent scientific support can offer, then the destiny of wild salmon can only have one outcome.
Sea Trout too: In his presentation to the FMS conference Dr John Armstrong illustrated the decline of wild salmon numbers with the following graph. This shows the salmon returning to the Scottish coast and the number of spawners in Scottish rivers.
What Dr Armstrong doesn’t make clear is that the gap between the two lines represents the number of fish killed as they reach Scottish waters either by coastal nets or by anglers. In recent years, the two lines have come together due to the fact many fewer fish are actually caught, regardless of how or why. Dr Armstrong does mention that the number of spawners has increased due to closure of the coastal nets meaning more fish might make it into the river systems. This does not mean that they cannot still be exploited.
The most interesting part of the story is that when catches are compared to the estimated number of fish returning to Scottish shores, the rate of decline is remarkably similar.
The reason why less fish are being caught is simply because there are less fish returning to Scottish waters. Simply put, if there is a desire to improve catches, then more fish need to return. The wild fish sector is trying to increase the number of juveniles going to sea, but this does not necessarily mean that more fish will return, especially if we don’t understand why fewer fish are returning.
I’ll include the following graph to show the relationships between returners, exploitation and spawners.
The added trend line shows that even spawners are in trouble.
However, given that Peter Pollard from SEPA told the FMS conference that the sea lice risk framework would be soon extended to include sea trout, I thought it worth a look at the trends in sea trout exploitation, which gives an indication of the state of the national sea trout population.
The following graph shows the total exploitation of sea trout across all of Scotland. Sea trout began to decline nationally at the end of the 1960s and with the exception of a slight increase in the 1980s, the decline has been continuous ever since.
Of course, what is of interest to me is the relationship between sea trout and the presence of salmon farming. For several years, I have presented an updated graph of sea trout catches from within the Aquaculture Zone going back to 1952. I have regularly asked the question that if sea lice from salmon farming was responsible for the declines what had caused the decline from 1952 onwards. I have never had an answer.
I have finally got around to comparing sea trout exploitation from the Aquaculture Zone with that from elsewhere in Scotland.
Yet again, and like the graph for salmon, the catches from both coasts are showing extremely similar rate of decline. I will be sending this graph to SEPA to ask how their risk framework is going to protect sea trout when it is clear that sea trout in salmon farming areas are suffering declines no differently to sea trout across all of Scotland.
Whilst Dr Armstrong highlights the decline in returning salmon to Scottish rivers, he does not consider exploitation of wild fish stocks as a whole, even though the Marine Directorate use catches as a measure of the size of the stock.
In the annual salmon and sea trout statistics, the total catch is broken down into various components such as fixed engine nettings, net and coble and rod catch. At the same time, salmon and sea trout are treated separately. However, it doesn’t really matter how the wild fish, whether salmon or sea trout, are caught. It is the total picture of stocks that is important, and this data is missing from the current assessments. Certainly, Dr Armstrong did not mention this in his FMS conference presentation.
This graph shows the changes in exploitation of salmon (blue) sea trout (orange) and combined (red).
The numbers may be very different, but the trajectories are very much the same and the projected end point is identical in every case. The writing has been on the wall for many years, but nothing has been done to halt the decline let alone understand what is happening.
The Science and Evidence Board is to provide guidance for placing large woody structures in the rivers. Good luck to that.