Surprising statistic: there were more salmon caught on the River Moy last year than in the whole of Scotland. So it came out at a meeting last week of the Dail Committee on Public Accounts. And Tom Carroll, Secretary General of the Department of the Marine, said people were booking years in advance to get prime slots on the river. "It's like trying to get boxes in Croke Park for the all-Ireland final", he said. On the other hand, Padraic McCormack TD said that sea lice infestation of sea trout was costing 70,000 bed nights a year, according to the Western Game Fisheries Association.
There is evidence that in some parts there has been a reduction of lice levels at fish farms, notably in Kerry, Donegal and a number of areas in Connemara. But while some people maintain that there is no direct proven link between salmon farms and sea lice in sea trout, how is it that when salmon farms have been fallowed, sea trout come back unscathed? The ginger group SOS (Save Our Sea Trout), in their summer newsletter write without qualification that "heavy lice infestation occurs only in systems which contain a salmon farm", and give much detail. They do commend bays with good lice control: Bantry Bay in Cork, Kenmare Bay in Kerry and Killary Harbour. Ballinakill Bay in Galway, they say, only contains smolts, young salmon, "which generally implies good lice control".
Of course, as this newsletter reminds us, intensive rearing methods of any type are a recipe for introducing disease, and where no known drug treatment is available, that disease will spread like wildfire. Norway has had a virus salmon disease, Canada, too. In one case this year in New Brunswick, more than a million fish were ordered to be slaughtered in one outbreak. The salmon farmer has his own troubles. These include a disease which only shows up, it seems, when fish are being smoked. Enough for the time being. Was the origin of our fish-farming in a book by J.P. Digby, published by Browne and Nolan in 1951, Emigration: The Answer?
To another salmonid, the charr. Michael McGuire of Derry asks how Y can reconcile the statement that the fish deserves special protection", while beginning "by inviting us all to eat one." The charr eaten was bought in a supermarket in Geneva, Switzerland. And eaten in Geneva. It was a farmed fish. There are also wild fish in the lake and restaurants advertise their availability on their menus. "It deserves special protection" refers to Ireland and is quoted from a scientific paper by D.T.G. Quigley and K. Flannery. And it does deserve protection on this island. All this was clearly set out in the original In Time's Eye. Y