Wild Atlantic Salmon Surrounded by Threats

WASHINGTON, DC, June 4, 2004 (ENS) - Ahead of a critical meeting in Iceland, fisheries experts called Thursday for tougher measures to reverse what they say is an "alarming decline" in wild Atlantic salmon populations, which have decreased by half over the past 20 years.

Fisheries scientists and conservationists are seeking to strengthen the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) as that body celebrates its 20th anniversary. The seven governments that are Parties to NASCO are: Canada, Denmark, the European Union, Iceland, Norway, Russia and the United States.

Next week's deliberations that open Monday in Reykjavik, Iceland, will chart the progess of these governments toward restoring wild Atlantic salmon.

"After 20 years of operation, NASCO faces a critical choice in defining its role," said Dr. Andy Rosenberg, co-author of "NASCO's Future: A Vision Statement" and a professor at the University of New Hampshire.

Wild Atlantic salmon (Photo courtesy Great Canadian Rivers)

In the statement, presented to the NASCO president and secretariat, the authors advance an 11 point agenda that urges NASCO to initiate negotiations toward an international regime on aquaculture management to protect wild salmon.

The acquaculture industry itself is undergoing a health crisis that may affect wild Atlantic salmon too.

Eight out of 10 sea cage salmon farms in Scotland are affected by a killer virus known as infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN). The percentage of infected farms is up from fewer than 30 percent in 1997 and 45 percent in 2000.

By contrast, only 26 percent of freshwater salmon farms are infected with IPN.

The disease kills 80 percent of the salmon it infects. The worst hit areas are the Shetland and Orkney islands and the Outer Hebrides. Marine waters subject to government disease restrictions in the last 12 months include Lochs Fyne, Eriboll, Roag, Ewe, Broom, Craignish, Sunart, Ainort, Seaforth, Portree, Alsh as well as the Sounds of Mull and Raasay.

Salmon advocates warn that IPN infected farmed escapees could expose wild fish stocks to the killer virus.

Don Staniford, managing director of the UK Salmon Farm Protest Group (SFPG), said, “Freshwater and marine salmon farms are acting as reservoirs for a host of deadly diseases. IPN infected farmed salmon escapees have already been caught in Loch Eil and Loch Linnhe and it is estimated that thousands if not hundreds of thousands of infected farmed salmon have escaped from their cages over the last five years.”

Fish farm in the Shetland Islands (Photo courtesy Scottish Executive)

Infectious pancreatic necrosis is not confined to salmon, but can affect many other species of fish, according to a Scottish government report.

“IPN has been demonstrated to affect a wide range of fish species including: Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, brown trout, Arctic charr, halibut, cod, haddock and turbot,” says the report Of The Aquaculture Health Joint Working Group On Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis In Scotland” published by the Scottish Executive in December 2003.

One solution may be to strengthen the role of NASCO in habitat conservation and restoration.

"Our Agenda for Action includes recommendations to establish a problem solving committee to determine various ways of strengthening NASCO, including adding new language to the treaty to broaden its legal authority," said Dr. Wilfred Carter, co-author of the report and Canadian representative during the initial planning and development phase of NASCO in the early 1980s.

"Without a group committed to working out these issues, time will run out for the wild Atlantic salmon," Carter said.

The Atlantic Salmon Federation based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and the international conservation organization WWF convened the report's panel of authors and support their independent findings.

"NASCO must become more effective than it has been in the past," said Bill Taylor, president of the Atlantic Salmon Federation. "NASCO meetings lack the urgency one might expect, given the alarming decline in populations of wild Atlantic salmon.

Wild Atlantic salmon populations in Eastern Canada and the United States have dropped to historic low levels, according to and Atlantic Salmon Federation report released Thursday in Halifax. "Since 1974, we have gone from more than 1.5 million salmon to fewer than 500,000 today," Taylor said. "This year, scientists project an especially disturbing decline in returns of large salmon to their native spawning rivers."

New England's wild Atlantic salmon rivers are not expected to meet even five percent of minimum conservation targets. Returns to the eight salmon rivers in Maine protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act numbered only 72 last year, an improvement over the 33 recorded two years ago.

One single river, the Penobscot, comprised more than three-quarters of the entire New England returns of 1,436 salmon in 2003.

Maine's Penobscot River is dammed in many places. (Photo courtesy Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission)

"Solving these problems requires habitat stewardship, research, and regulatory control of harmful industrial practices, all things that require government leadership and involvement," said Taylor.

A reinvigorated NASCO based on ecosystem management and a new orientation toward public awareness and nongovernmental participation is needed, he said.

"We can't afford to lose this extraordinary species that symbolizes the environmental health of rivers and oceans," said Kim Davis, deputy director of WWF's Marine Conservation Program. "The public should be informed about the sobering status of the wild Atlantic salmon, a mainstay of the culture, history, and environment of thousands of rivers that empty into the North Atlantic."

The authors are urging NASCO government delegates to develop a common strategy with other North Atlantic fisheries organizations for minimizing by-catch of juvenile salmon in deep water fisheries such as that for mackerel.

Establishment of river-by-river conservation limits in all salmon rivers would better guide management decisions, they said.

Recent statistics published by the International Council of the Exploration of the Sea, the scientific body that advises NASCO, show that wild salmon are in decline on both sides of the Atlantic.

From 1983 to 2003, wild Atlantic salmon have suffered a decline of 41 percent in Canada and the United States, 54 percent in Southern Europe - France, United Kingdom, and Ireland - and 36 percent in Northern Europe - Norway, Russia, Iceland, and Finland.

"NASCO has achieved its original mandate," said Taylor. "This initiative presents an opportunity to put NASCO into shape to meet the challenges of the next 20 years. Our ultimate goal should be to reverse historical declines, and create healthy runs of the king of fish."

Read the Status of North American Wild Atlantic Salmon at: http://www.asf.ca/reports/2004state/nascovision2004_811.pdf

View the UK salmon situation at: Salmon Farm Monitor