Salmon and Trout Association: Fish Stock Management

The management and conservation of native fish species, includes;

Sea Trout and Salmon Strategy

Salmon Research Report 2009 - the first annual report of fish numbers on the River Frome, Dorset

Trout and Grayling Strategy

NASCO

Sea Trout and Salmon

The Environment Agency’s (EA) Better sea trout and salmon fisheries Strategy was launched by the new EA Chairman, Lord Smith (Chris Smith – former Culture Minister) at the opening of the new Blatchford fish pass on the River Yealm on August 12th. S&TA has been closely involved in the process leading up to the Strategy’s launch, and the Chief Executive, Paul Knight, was invited to attend the event, along with S&TA committee member, Chris Klee, who is also Chairman of the South West RFERAC. During his introduction speech, Head of Fisheries, Dafydd Evans, paid special tribute to S&TA’s input to the Strategy.

The Strategy marks the culmination of a welcome partnership approach to producing policy, which began with a meeting of stakeholders back in July, 2007, well before the consultation process began. During a full day meeting with EA Fisheries personnel, we put across consensus views on almost all issues, and the EA included the majority of these in the consultation document, and then the final Strategy, which sets out a number of key aims the EA wants to see achieved by 2021, including:

• improving the quality and increasing the availability of habitats
• promoting and realising better land management practices
• working with partners to remove or reduce impacts of barriers to fish migration
• reducing the exploitation of at-risk stocks
• making the most effective use of resources by working to the strength of partners
• establishing sea trout and salmon as widely recognised environmental icons

The most welcome move is the inclusion of sea trout, so often the ‘forgotten’ salmonid, in the Strategy, and the move to places salmon habitat requirements within Water Framework Directive (WFD) objectives. These are at River Basin level at present but, provided the relevant measures are delivered at catchment level, as they must be to be effective, then salmon and sea trout can become the major indicator species for WFD, a position we have continually lobbied as their rightful place.

We support the continuation of the Spring Measures, whereby all salmon caught before June 16th must be returned. Spring stocks have not recovered sufficiently to allow anything else and, although we originally asked for a relaxation on those rivers, such as Tyne, that arguably had a surplus of fish, this was rightly dismissed because of the increased angling pressure that would inevitably result.

We are especially pleased with the emphasis on the aquatic environment, and the need for Salmon Action Plans (SAPs) to be delivered as part of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). While SAPs must remain on a catchment basis, the idea of presenting them as regional strategies, designed to dovetail with River Basin District Plans, is an excellent way of raising the profile of fisheries within WFD.

Consultation Reponses

S&TA/AST joint response to Modernisation of Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Legislation: New Order to Address the Passage of Fish.
S&TA. (2006). Impact Assessment for Proposed New Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Bill
S&TA. (2006). Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill

For further information see;

NASCO guidelines for Atlantic salmon habitat compiled in collaboration with the S&TA
EA. (2008). Better Sea Trout and Salmon Fisheries

Trout & Grayling Strategy

This Strategy remains slightly more controversial, following its review and re-launch in 2008, EA have decided to stop giving consent to stock rivers and most lakes with fertile (diploid) farm strain brown trout in England and Wales from 2015, therefore sterile, triploid fish will be permitted. This is because inter-breeding between farmed and wild brown trout is believed to lower the ability of the offspring to survive in the wild, and could have serious implications for the long term future of wild brown trout (and sea trout). The EA have set targets to see:

• 30 per cent less than present of farm strain fertile trout stocked into English and Welsh rivers by 2010;
• 50 per cent less by 2013;
• and full compliance by 2015.

S&TA supports the principle of protecting wild brown trout populations, but we still retain some reservation about certain aspects of the Strategy. We feel;

• Why, after some 150 years of stocking diploids, do we feel that triploids will now protect our remaining wild stocks? If there were to be genetic impact, would it not have occurred by now?
• Are we certain that triploids will survive the more challenging conditions of spate-rivers?
• There are worries in some chalk streams that triploids do not rise to the dry fly so well as diploids.
• We need more scientific evidence on which to base stocking policies,

Some fisheries do not wish to stock with adults, but prefer to lay down eggs, the survivors from which will be more akin to wild fish. This is permitted within the Strategy, but it is difficult to collect eggs from local wild fish and successfully hatch them.

In these instances, we urged the EA to act in three ways:

• To give scientific assistance to collecting eggs from local wild stock, and assist their successful hatching in conditions which are as close to ‘natural’ as possible.
• To allocate extra resources to improve habitat in those areas impacted by water abstraction.
• To coordinate work within other EA departments to close down environmentally damaging abstraction licenses, and so reinstate lost natural spawning streams.

We are also concerned about the loss of some spawning and juvenile habitat, particularly from excessive abstraction. It is impossible to protect wild fish stocks if the environment for them is being wrecked by another process, whether that is abstraction, agricultural impact or industrial pollution. So, if the EA is to impose the Trout & Grayling Strategy with one hand, it has to protect habitat with the other, which means that WFD delivery is as important to trout and grayling as to salmon and sea trout.

Consultation responses;

S&TA. (2007). Trout and Grayling Strategy
S&TA. (2003). Trout and Grayling Strategy

NASCO

The North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) is an international organization, established under the Convention for the Conservation of Salmon in the North Atlantic Ocean. It came into force in October 1983, with the objective to conserve, restore, and enhance management of salmon stocks, which migrate beyond areas of fisheries jurisdiction of coastal States of the Atlantic Ocean north of 36°N latitude throughout their migratory range.

NASCO 08; focussed attention on those countries still operating coastal mixed stock salmon fisheries, especially Norway and Scotland, who came under great NGO pressure during two special sessions. This culminated in the Faroese representative announcing that, if further progress is not achieved by next year’s meeting, the Faroes would be forced to review its decision not to fish for salmon in home waters.

Focus Area Reports
During 2007, NASCO parties produced reports on how they had implemented fisheries management agreements and regulations controlling exploitation in distant and home water fisheries. A review group considered the plans and reported back to the special sessions, but the Council asked the group to continue its review in the light of responses to questions asked mainly by NGOs during the meeting, before submitting a final report to the President at the end of October.

Salmon at Sea (SALSEA)
The SALSEA programme, which co-ordinates salmon research at sea between all the NASCO governments, is now committed to expenditure of some £6.7m in 2008, researching migration patterns of post smolts and adults in their marine phase. It is anticipated that this will culminate in a “Salmon Summit” in 2011, at which the results of the SALSEA programme will be published.

Aquaculture
The impacts of Aquaculture continue to cause major concerns amongst NGOs; in particular, the problems of escapees and the potential for infection of wild fish with sea lice. Aquaculture will be one of the major issues at the 2009 NASCO meeting in Norway, with S&TA representing the NGOs on the working group.

For further details visit; http://www.nasco.int/.

S&TA and AST Live fish movement consultation response