You are: The Net Loss
Home News Diary Dates About Membership S&TA Store Issues & Conservation Events Branches Scotland STA Scotland Learning to Fish Becoming a Coach Where to Fish Links Contact Sitemap	Salmon and Trout Association: The Net Loss Petition Allow our salmon to come home The Atlantic salmon is an iconic symbol of Scotland and one of its greatest natural resources. It provides vital revenue to the rural economy and is central to its wonderful biodiversity. Yet, it is under threat by man. Fish spawned in Scottish streams grow to maturity in the oceans of the Northern hemisphere. However, having overcome countless threats to their survival and before reaching their natal rivers to breed future generations, they must still run the gauntlet of Scotland’s mixed stock coastal netting stations. These fisheries indiscriminately catch any salmon passing by, regardless of where they are heading or the strength of the population in their home rivers. They are mixed stock fisheries, and therefore completely non-selective. This makes managing individual river stocks almost impossible, because tagging has shown that salmon can be netted in coastal waters, over 200 miles from their river of birth. The Scottish Government’s 2001 Green Paper on Freshwater Fish and Fisheries stated that “the exploitation of salmon outside their river of origin is widely accepted as contrary to good salmon management, primarily on the grounds that it does not discriminate between separate river populations and therefore severely inhibits monitoring and optimum management of exploitation of stocks on a catchment basis”. Scotland banned salmon drift netting in 1963. However, it still allows an average declared catch of about 25,000 salmon per year to be killed in mixed stock fisheries – and this does not include any undeclared catch. We, the Salmon and Trout Association, backed by leading fisheries and angling conservation organisations, believe that this is an indefensible situation and we intend to facilitate an end to Scottish coastal mixed stock salmon netting. Did you know that Scottish mixed stock net fisheries: Kill all the fish they catch? Have less than 100 part-time employees? Contribute less than £2m to the economy, and less than £30,000 a year to salmon conservation? Whereas salmon anglers: Return over half of all fish caught to the water to breed. Spend more than £70m a year, often in remote communities, supporting over 2000 local jobs. Contribute about £40 for each fish caught towards salmon management. America and Canada have ceased netting for Atlantic salmon, and Ireland permanently closed its mixed stock drift net fishery in 2006. The Greenlanders catch only a small subsistence quota and the Faroese choose not to exploit their right to fish for salmon in home waters for conservation reasons. It is now time for Scotland to face up to its management responsibilities. While there are provisions under Scottish law to regulate mixed stock fisheries, the Salmon and Trout Association would prefer to facilitate the buy-out or lease of the heritable rights to coastal salmon netting and so protect the salmon. Managers of Scottish catchments spend millions of pounds restoring their salmon populations, anglers practise catch and release; and local quota agreements limit in-river nets. Yet all this is jeopardised by netting interests who invest almost nothing in conservation – a damning reflection on man’s inability to protect natural resources. We hope that you will agree that this is an unacceptable way to manage a species under pressure. Download our leaflet CLICK HERE TO SIGN OUR PETITION....
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