this don’t look to good 🙄
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I read somewhere that each salmon cage releases the same amount of sh1te as a herd of 1000 cows. Added to that they use ammonia to help control the sea lice.
In fairness, global warming will impact salmon, low river levels mean the fish cannot reach the spawning grounds. Low levels also mean that predators have a greater effect because fish are more concentrated.
All irrelevant anyway, because at the current rate beavers will stop them getting upstream!
In fairness, global warming will impact salmon, low river levels mean the fish cannot reach the spawning grounds. Low levels also mean that predators have a greater effect because fish are more concentrated.
All irrelevant anyway, because at the current rate beavers will stop them getting upstream!
I dont blame the predators, agriculture, fish farms or global warming. I think its because theres just too much human waste and chemicals going into the rivers now. All water flows back to the sea and since the population has increased by approx 27 million since 1900 then what do we expect.
Freeforester
Well-Known Member
Think of salmon smolts as fledgling birds - they’re most at risk when they leave the relative security of the nest and join the wider, harsher world - so it is with the smolts, that typically run like mercury out of the rivers, but never return. Presence of predatory animals and birds indicate a healthy food source. Over a century ago Malloch of Perth was tagging and releasing salmon smolts in order to track their movements. He determined that a sizeable proportion of east coast river smolts spent their first few months travelling around the north coastline and down into the Western Scottish sea lochs, feeding on the rich pickings available there. A simple means of verifying this would be to remove all the salmon farming from the waters there (they produce more toxic pollution in our inshore waters than the sewage tonnage of all the West Scottish coastal conurbations combined, but without the associated treatment costs, with predictable outcomes for marine health in the vicinity), as I understand they have now done in Chile, which formerly had a substantial salmon farming industry; alas corruption among our governing classes plays a large part in the continued plunder and pollution of our marine environment. Naturescot are nowhere to be seen, too busy trying to extirpate the stag and the grouse from the hills, having seen to the demise of the salmon.
Fun fact: in Sweden and Denmark, Scottish farmed salmon carry health warnings, in Dk people are advised not to eat it regularly, and pregnant women in Sweden are advised to avoid it altogether.
Scientific studies show that beaver dams are not the barriers for migratory fish that we might imagine. Even in low water conditions most dams do not totally block the river, and in spate conditions the fish will get upstream regardless.
The loss of salmon in our rivers is down to over-fishing at sea, lack of predator control, and disease (and other factors) from fish-farms.
Sadly because fish are invisible our politicians and "nature" organisations really don't care.
Used to enjoy the tussles with Grayling there.
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
Indications from recent research are that a lot of smoults are dying before they reach the feeding grounds, seemingly from poor nourishment along the way.
If enough parr are surviving to smoult phase then the depredations of the birds don’t matter, far more will be taken by predatory fish.
Except I can sit at the mouth of a couple of our local rivers and watch literally hundreds of cormarants taking smoults at the "right" time of year. This must dent the smoult population quite significantly.
David.
Dunwaters
Well-Known Member
All other things being equal, and God knows they’re not, the birds can only hunt in daylight and within a relatively few feet of the surface.
They also need a bit of visibility to hunt.
We don’t see the bass and pollack lined up, but they’re there.
Comorants can dive pretty deep after their prey. Certainly a lot more than a few feet of the surface.
But personally I think that predation is a minor issue. If there were the numbers of fish that there used to be there'd be more than enough to go around.
Andy seatrout
Well-Known Member
I think it’s been proven through smolt tracking that up to 96% of smolts get predated before they reach the sea…… on the Welsh coast there’s no fish farms, the seatrout don’t migrate that far, there’s plenty of food ( bass are doing very well) no large towns and sheep farming point the cause in one area- predation of parr and smolts…..I have seen more goosander on the river Dyfi in the last five years than seatrout…the rivers rod catch has gon from 2,000+ in 2015 to about 300 a year now. there’s a petition on change .org that’s been in T&S and FF&FT but only has 3k signatures…. Anglers can be massively appathetic…. Disappointing…. If you think basc can sometimes screw up take a look at the angling trust- never an unkind word for the EA/ NRW it seems….
Actually, I see a fair few salmon jumping the Tewkesbury weir, fresh from the tide, but I have no idea the survival rate. There are a few Tewkesbury residents who religiously fish for them every day and we see some caught and returned, but I’d rather we left them alone. The EA were fishing the weir for Shad - now very rare, so catching them with spinners hardly seemed a sensible thing to do. I still see sea trout or Peal in Cornish spate rivers but in secret places not far from the sea - not much runs up the Camel and Fowey anymore, which is a great pity. Until we sort our environmental policies and practices out and stop giving into woke here-today-gone-tomorrow Ministers playing to a gallery of re-wilding anti’s with an axe to grind, the decline will continue. Wow! My first rant on SD. I’ll calm down, now….
I just caught up with a documentary I recorded from the Earthx channel. Apparently companies (mostly Norwegian) are now farming Atlantic salmon in the Pacific north-west, with dire impacts on the native salmon species, and thus on everything from the resident orcas to the bears, eagles, etc. and ultimately the coastal forests.
Very depressing.
Very depressing.
Last year on the Exe, the salmon didn't reach the spawning grounds (for the second year apparently), through low water levels, and this year a lot of the silt their natural food lives in has been washed away.
Added to which we have otters, mink, cormorants, herons, egrets and goosanders. Oh, and (usually eastern European) poachers.
I'm surprised that we have any fish at all.
Added to which we have otters, mink, cormorants, herons, egrets and goosanders. Oh, and (usually eastern European) poachers.
I'm surprised that we have any fish at all.
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