"Fresh, farmed salmon." Was that TV or radio advertisement heard correctly? Soon, perhaps, everything finned will be farmed. Was there not farmed bass recently on sale? And did not someone speak of the possibility of farming char (salmo salvelinue) - a splendid fish when it comes from northern chilly waters, but not to be sneezed at when it comes from lakes, as in Geneva and sometimes in Ireland. But, to salmon again. So many of the products we now ingest give the details of the contents on the label or container, such as "no added sugar," and/or "no artificial colourants".
Is there a hint for salmon farmers here? They feed their fish on several kinds of pellets, it is believed, and the beef experiences is not reassuring to customers. The salmon farmer might be able to tell us, by advertisement, say, just what substances he gives to his fish. You can't expect this with every salmon steak you buy (and it all goes down well and often) but, for example, a little label on the side of the smoked salmon you buy at the airport? It is good business to give the customer as much information as is reasonable.
The salmon comes to mind on looking through a colourful brochure from the Eastern Fisheries Regional Board, entitled The Boyne Valley Fishery. Lovely cover photograph and a few lines from Francis Ledwidge: "Where the jewelled trout are leaping/ And the heron flings his spear." Great clarity of presentation and details of not only the hundreds of miles of river but also separate sheets on various lakes all around. You can have it in English, French, Dutch, and maybe more languages.
One message is hammered home: it's a brown trout fishery. They do admit: "The River Boyne holds some stocks of salmon and sea trout(!) and anglers must obtain the necessary permission before fishing. A State licence is required to fish for salmon and sea trout." Some stocks, note. You wonder if the salmon is holding its own. Certainly they don't, to public knowledge, appear to be under siege from sea-lice as are so many waters in the West and in Scotland. Jobs are jobs, but the problem in the West is a funked issue.
One solution suggested for a Scottish river in decline was a catch-and-return system. an ignoble end for such a mighty fish. To be hauled onto the bank, then probably weighed, and chucked back. Better to stop salmon angling for a few years, combined with intensive patrolling of spawning areas. And in the west experiment with putting salmon farms a couple of miles out to sea, away from river estuaries.