Madam, - The wild salmon in our small western rivers are a precious resource, and an endangered one. Those who still fish for them are encouraged to release such fish as they are caught, to help maintain the dwindling breeding-stock.
In The Irish Times Magazine of June 26th, your food writer amiably recommends that we eat wild salmon now and then, and your wine writer recommends bottles to drink as we eat it. On four separate pages of that same magazine, advertisements urge us to buy wild salmon.
The advertisements were placed by Bord Iascaigh Mhara, the State body that subsidises the sea-fishing industry. They specify that the best salmon are those caught at sea, before they have re-entered their native rivers and have a chance to survive and breed.
Meanwhile the various fisheries boards spend large sums trying to encourage salmon to breed in those same rivers, and another state agency, Bord Fáilte, tempts foreign visitors to catch them there.
Two State agencies try to help salmon breed; a third says they should be killed before they can breed. It's a stupid way to run a Government and spend taxpayers' money. Your magazine gave its support to the stupidest of the resulting contradictions, namely the State-financed destruction of a resource which the State says it values. - Yours, etc.,
NICHOLAS HARMAN, Tully, Louisburgh, Co Mayo.