The Salmon and Trout Association (S&TA) has submitted a formal complaint to Europe over the Scottish Government’s failure to comply with European law to protect Atlantic salmon populations in parts of Scottish rivers.
According to the organisation, coastal salmon netting is increasing in Scotland and in contract to almost all other Atlantic salmon producing nations, Scotland has almost no management regime in place to prevent this, nor are catches limited.
“The situation in Scotland is being closely watched. It is helping to fuel pressure by Ireland’s salmon nets men on the authorities there to be permitted to re-open their coastal fisheries,” said Hugh Campbell Adamson, chairman, S&TA. “The Irish nets used to take significant quantities of Scottish fish. In addition the Faroese, which used to catch large numbers of migrating Scottish salmon, have noted with interest Scotland’s increase in netting.”
According to Oceana, there was a huge leap in the coastal salmon netting catch in 2013 and in the last three years, Scotland’s largest netting company has acquired the fishing rights to an additional 12 miles of coastline.
In addition, dormant netting stations have been re-opened without the Scottish Government carrying out an appropriate assessment on the likely impact on salmon rivers with Special Area of Conservation status.
“Such indiscriminate exploitation should have no place in the 21st century as they have no way of discriminating between weaker or stronger stocks. It is absolutely clear that Scotland, by failing to protect weaker stocks, falls far short of its international obligations,” added Paul Knight, CEO, S&TA.
