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The Erne Salmon - A Lesson from America

The disastrous decline in wild stock returning to the River Erne, once the foremost salmon river in Ireland, is causing widespread alarm among anglers and environmentalists north and south, and well beyond the country's borders.

The mismanagement of the fishery is giving Ireland a black eye in the European Union, many members of which have shown by their actions that they understand the need for natural fisheries conservation.

By contrast, squabbling over riparian rights between the state and angling clubs, the costs of protection, and the lure of potential profits from hatchery spawned salmon have detracted from the main concern, the preservation and growth of the natural stock, now threatened with extinction not only on the Erne but on other rivers as well.

Let's go over the story once more.

Until the advent of the E.S.B. hydro-electricity generating plant and the construction of two reservoir dams within a short distance of each other on the river between the towns of Ballyshannon and Belleek, the Erne was blessed with an abundance of salmon.

A poorly designed fish pass and a management focused on promoting artificial hatcheries have since wrought havoc with the wild stock.

Figures speak for themselves. In 1997/98 the E.S.B. fish pass recorded a total of 1,061 wild salmon passing through it, and in 1999 just 349, a staggering decline of 66%.

Two years later, in 2001, diseased salmon were found dying in numbers in the fish pass, in the tailrace from the Cathleen's Falls dam, and in the estuary into which the tailrace flows. Marine scientists in Ireland have as yet been unable to determine the cause.

One argument advanced in favour of hatchery reared salmon must be exposed as fallacious. It is an absolute pretence to hold that hatchery salmon are no different from wild salmon. How often have we heard the saying: "It's all in the genes"? In this case it is demonstrably true.

Hatchery salmon are grown from eggs that represent only a fraction of the gene pool of wild salmon. As a result they are vulnerable to disease.

Not only that, when released into waters shared with wild salmon, they damage that stock.

A telling example was the release by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife of hatchery raised coho salmon into coastal streams to boost the population of wild coho.

Quoting from a news report:

"What happened was the opposite. Juvenile hatchery densities increased by 50 percent, while wild juvenile fish decreased by 50 percent."

"We concluded," the agency reported, "that release of hatchery coho into coastal streamsd has…hurt coho populations rather than helped them."

Fortunately a growing number of spokespersons have taken the plight of the salmon to heart. With awareness of the looming disaster growing, there is hope that an informed public will demand that their representatives at all levels will act to save the famed wild salmon of the Erne.


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