Finavon Castle Bulletin

Some Thoughts about Priorities for Action.

Thinking about Finavon, the South Esk, the East Coast of Scotland, the southern range of wild Atlantic salmon, and the North Atlantic Ocean as the salmon’s bio-region, is to follow the migration of our very own salmon from their juvenile time in upland burns of the S Esk catchment to the rich feeding grounds (or maybe not so rich) in the Ocean itself. It is not fanciful to think globally in this way. Indeed, I would argue that to fail to do so inhibits our aspirations to return our salmon rivers to the abundance of the 1970s. We have to think and act in recognition of the whole life of our salmon. I cannot make a wake-up call on my own. I need supporters, colleagues and partners to recognise that spending most of our resources on the 5% of fish that get back to our rivers is to ignore the 95% that die at sea. I want to see a far better balance of effort and resources than we have at present.

Dolphins predating on salmon in the Moray Firth. These salmon were waiting in the dangerous inshore waters for a spate to draw them into their rivers. WEemust assess such risks as part of fishery management.

In preparation for forthcoming meetings with American and Canadian colleagues I want to indicate two or three projects which would benefit from an injection of programme funding. I don’t want to overload you with a lot of reading, but I decided to include a couple of attachments to give you a feel for our new strategy, which concentrates mainly on the marine environment.

AST is committed to a ‘Big Picture’ approach to salmon conservation. By that we mean wild Atlantic salmon throughout their lives in all parts of the North Atlantic Ocean. We treat salmon as pelagic fish that interact with other species throughout their marine phase. We cannot treat them in isolation, as has been the tendency until recently.

We therefore recognise that it is essential to work cooperatively across international borders in all parts of the ocean bio-region. We want to concentrate on research and actions which have a prospect of producing measurable outcomes within a reasonable timescale. We are therefore looking closely at areas where human intervention can make a difference to numbers of adult salmon returning to rivers throughout the North Atlantic region.

Our themes include:

1) reducing exploitation, including accidental by-catch

2) removing or adapting obstructions to migrations

3) establishing ‘safe’ migration routes

4) raising public awareness of the predicament of wild Atlantic salmon, including education.

5) influencing development of sustainable aquaculture

6) influencing decision makers in order to benefit salmon conservation

7) initiating international meetings & fora for discussion on key issues, innovation and sharing best practice.

Three projects within these themes which would benefit from US charitable support are:

PROJECT ONE: By-catch

Innovative E-DNA pilot project to address the problems of accidental by-catch by pelagic trawlers. Our concern is the likelihood that post smolt migrations, relatively densely packed within coastal currents, may be inadvertently caught up in huge purse-seine nets. It is conceivable that the outward migration of a small river catchment could be decimated by pelagic trawlers. (See project proposal on separate attachment)

PROJECT TWO: ‘safe’ migration routes.

Establishing safe migration pathways for salmon between their native river estuaries and their feeding grounds. This project requires building on data from the SALSEA project and subsequent tracking projects to define migration routes prior to negotiating with national and international governments and organisations to agree protocols to reduce poaching & accidental damage to wild salmon stocks.

Feeding grounds off the West Coast of Greenland. We need to find ways of protecting the migration routes of salmon between their home rivers and their feeding grounds – for outward and inward migrations.

PROJECT THREE: post-smolts in estuaries & coastal waters

AST and others are concerned over the high rate of mortality of smolts in the days after they enter the sea. We recognise that the inherent vulnerability of these little fish, weakened by osmo-regulation & local conditions may cause huge variations in survival rates. Research is urgently required to establish what proportions of smolts die from causes such as predation, pollution, dredging, disease, infrastructural obstructions, drought etc in the intertidal zone. If we are able to identify a) the extent of the loss b) the causes we should be able to develop remedial actions.

Rough seas in winter

TA

155,000 escaped chickens invade the Vale of Strathmore”

Just imagine if that were true!!

Over 300,000 lbs of live battery chickens running around wild, defecating and swamping the countryside….

The difference between that and what we are doing in the sea off the west coast and islands of of Scotland is that a) chickens don’t interbreed with populations of wild birds b) we can see the chickens and the mess they make c) as far as we know escaped farmed chickens don’t cause disease or mass explosions of parasites.

If the countryside around Forfar were suddenly to be inundated with 155,000 battery chickens you might expect there to be complaints in the press and live media. In fact I would expect there to be a major public objection. SEPA and SNH would get involved and those chickens would be recaptured very quickly. Moreover the farmer whose poor biosecurity allowed this massive escape to happen would most likely be charged, lose his licence, fined and put out of business.

In the last few years 2.7 million farmed salmon have escaped from their open-mesh (“string vest”) cages in Scotland’s once pristine northern waters. Most recently 155,000 salmon have “escaped” from a salmon farm in Shetland. But, because noone sees them, as they would those escaped chickens, those massive escapes of farmed salmon go unseen and largely unremarked.

When battery hens are in their coops, all the effluents are treated and regularly monitored. Not so the effluents from open mesh salmon cages. Untreated raw sewage from millions of caged salmon close to the beaches and coastal villages of our islands and west coast communities are poured into the sea in huge quantities, along with uneaten food, and chemicals for treating disease and parasites. It is no exaggeration to say that these salmon are literally growing in their own shit, reminding me of the quote by WC Fields who said “I don’t drink water. Fish fuck in it”!

Please think hard about the way we grow our farmed salmon in the sea. Do the salmon farming companies’ balance sheets reflect the massive freebie they get by not processing their waste, as every other farmer in the country is forced to do by law? Can our seas really absorb all that crap? If salmon farmers are getting that freebie, who is really paying the bill in lost biodiversity, pollution and visual spoiling of our wilderrness coastline – certainly impacting on tourism?

Even the most unscientific of us will realise on the basis of common sense that you cannot swamp the fragile ecosystems of those northern inshore waters with those levels of effluent without there being collateral damage. Any farmer will tell you that. The Kentucky dust bowl disaster of the 1930s is an example of where greed & profit overides common sense and good husbandry. No Wizard of Oz to help the beleaguered Scottish west coast!

Because the destruction is happening below the surface of the sea, it is out of sight and out of mind. How very convenient that is to their accountants, who tot up the profits and present the balance sheets! How different those accounts would look if the real costs of treating the sewage from salmon farms were included.

That is why I keep banging on about Closed Containment salmon farming. It is not ideal I know. Any form of animal farming in such huge amounts is far from the world of the hunter/gatherer, who could kill and eat an animal from its natural environment. But we have to find sustainable methods of providing protein at a reasonable price for 7.5 billion people living on this planet. Aquaculture is the way forward, but not at any price.

Please support AST and its partners in promoting closed containment salmon. It tastes better, it doesn’t pollute the beaches, it doesn’t infect wild salmon & sea trout with disease and parasites, nor does iot threaten wild salmonids with inter-breeding.

I would rather have the 155,000 battery chickens!

TA

Mixed Stocks Fisheries. The Lairds of our Coast and wild salmon. Breath-taking arrogance, unsustainable, out-of-date, and cause for international censure.

After years of abuse of the netting slap periods, Usan Fisheries have at last been brought to account. To anyone concerned about the state of salmon and sea trout stocks on the east coast of Scotland, they will feel that this legal action is long overdue.

Sailing close to the wind. Did Usan jibe? It is widely recognised by everyone involved in salmon fishery management that the activities of the Usan Salmon Fishery have at times been somewhat ‘close to the wind’ in terms of the law. The weekly slap times, when nets are by law supposed to be rendered inactive by removing the leaders to the bag nets, are in place to support the conservation of salmon, grilse and sea trout. They are most certainly not regulations for a pick and choose approach by Usan Fisheries, arguably the most destructive mixed stocks fishery remaining in the UK.

The owners of the Usan Salmon Fisheries company now face 12 charges relating to alleged incidents in Angus and Fife during August and September 2013. The locations cited are at Boddin, Dysart, Ethie Haven and Scurdie Ness. If it transpires that their nets were operating in the month of September it will confirm the extraordinary arrogance – some might say the behaviour of people who seem to regard the Scottish coast as their fiefdom, and all salmon as their property – of a fishery which surely is now an anachronism, putting Scotland’s inept management of its wild salmon into international pariah status. The fact is that September is outwith the netting season. Transgression of statutory season closures is surely tantamount to poaching?

Of the twelve charges, five are related to netting salmon every weeekend in August from 1800 on Fridays to 0600 on Mondays, all outwith the statutory weekly close time for net fisheries.

All this may seem petty and somewhat arcane to anyone unfamiliar with the operations of Usan Salmon Fisheries. This company, which has long received political and moral support from government and funding from the EU, takes salmon in unknown numbers from most, if not all, east coast salmon rivers. No-one knows which populations of fish are being exploited, some of which may be in a fragile condition (as is the case with the government’s own assessment of South Esk spring salmon). The activities of Usan Salmon Fisheries make it impossible for fishery managers on all affected rivers to assess the condition of their salmon stocks.

The existence of that mixed stocks net fishery is simply bad fishery management, and it is time to take full control of their exploitation. If it is found that they have been flouting the law, notwithstanding health and safety considerations, it will become absolutely clear that they cannot be trusted to manage their operations within the law. Appropriate measures to curb their activities, on conservation grounds alone, must surely follow?

And I haven’t even touched on the immense damage being done by one small family business to the rural economy and communities from Fife to Inverness!