Angling Notes:There are about 2,000 rivers with salmon that flow into the north Atlantic, the president of North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (Nasco), Dr Ken Whelan, told delegates at a recent conference on salmon restoration in Bunclody, Co Wexford.
"We talk about efforts to boost the amount of salmon coming out of rivers but there is a large ocean out there and we have to understand what is happening. An analogy between a skyscraper and a tiny cottage with four walls - that's the amount of knowledge we have between freshwater and the marine," he said.
When Nasco was first established its scope was limited. EU countries, together with Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Russia, Canada and the US came together because there was a major problem of over-harvesting at sea.
Fisheries "came out of nowhere in the mid-1960s" and put huge pressure on the wild salmon stock. An indication that politics does work is reflected in the agreement reached at senior diplomatic level and the subsequent report by the national government organisations (NGOs).
"Reports from the 1980s confidently predicated that once this problem was solved, 'Hey Presto!' the rivers were going to be full of salmon. There was even talk of abandoning Nasco," he said.
But when the nets were removed, there was still the residual problem of fish surviving at sea. By the late 1990s it became obvious something more cohesive and better planned was required.
So Nasco formed the International Salmon Research Board, an executive committee charged with identifying problem areas and encouraging NGOs and government parties to get the work done in those problem areas.
The question of marine survival is interesting, particularly in Ireland because the issue made a great leap from a situation whereby government policy was one of rational harvest to one last November of conservation of wild salmon.
In the southern complex - Ireland, Britain and France - a graph would frighten anybody in terms of survival, particularly the one-sea-winter fish. Interestingly, in the northern complex - Scandinavia, Iceland and Russia - there is a tendency for those stocks to survive a little better.
The big question concerns the amount of salmon surviving at sea, Dr Whelan said. We know that the number of multi-sea-winter and spring salmon have declined more rapidly than one-sea-winter fish in northern and southern hemispheres.
This is most worrying because the problem may be linked to change of currents, availability of food and temperature regime in the ocean. "We see the highest mortality when salmon are small and when smolts are moving out to sea," he said.
A group of scientists met recently to pursue the matter further. "Obviously we want to know why, where, when and how salmon are dying at sea," he said.
Critically we need to know the distribution of migrating smolts and their feeding location and the whereabouts of European salmon during their first winter. "Five years ago a graph showing migration of Irish salmon would have stopped at the Faroes. We know now they go north off the Norwegian coast," he said.
Enter Salsea, an international network for ocean research on salmon that aims to secure standards of conservation at sea which will match those of our best-managed salmon rivers. The project will offer a clue to the conundrum whereby wild salmon leave their native rivers to feed in the North Atlantic, and fail to return.
Salsea requires the commitment of all member countries of Nasco and an expenditure of 21 million to be shared by Canada, the US, the EU, Norway, Russia and Iceland. "The good news is that half of that money is already in place," he said. The programme will start this autumn and the cruises will commence in May of next year from Galway harbour.
A party of Polish, Hungarian and Irish anglers anchored in Courtmacsherry Bay, Co Cork, last week due to bad weather. Their catch included a male common skate, estimated at 57kg, caught by Hungarian angler Zoltan Timar, which was tagged and returned.