Prime Time - Galway Salmon Farm

i wonder is it possible to get the rod angling returns,the actual number of anglers, the fish counter figures for the ballinahinch, inagh and gowla fisheries which flow into the bertragh,for the years 2009 to 2012.
with these figures it would give some idea of the effect on fish returns since the re-introduction of salmon farming in the bay.
i would bet that this info will be hard to come by for obvious reasons, but it would be worth a try all the same.

bertraghboy bay, where I live

google Bertraghboy Bay fish farm https://www.google.ie/search?q=Bertragh ... 24&bih=603
and have a good read through some of the pages that come up and show me a page that has something good to say about the fish farm on it

missed this did you, if it wasnt for the farm there would be 62 less people in the area due to immigration.
Letterard was once home to a fish processing factory owned by Gaelic Seafoods which then went out of business in the early 2000s. There is still a small group of fishermen who use the old jetty and factory to store fish and to park their boats. It was once a big producer of mackerel and other pollack but in the 2000s the number of fish in the bay dropped dramatically and money became scarce forcing them to close down the business. It was also a huge provider of local jobs and it provided over 62 jobs between fisheries and office workers.

i wonder is it possible to get the rod angling returns,the actual number of anglers, the fish counter figures for the ballinahinch, inagh and gowla fisheries which flow into the bertragh,for the years 2009 to 2012.
with these figures it would give some idea of the effect on fish returns since the re-introduction of salmon farming in the bay.
i would bet that this info will be hard to come by for obvious reasons, but it would be worth a try all the same.

The only data i can find is upto 2008, Whats the obivious reason?

A few points for this discussion:

The Seatrout collapse in the 80’s was all over the country while it did seem to be worse in the western region.
Prior to the collapse the amount of seatrout being taken by anglers was breath taking. I did it myself. As a young lad I thought catching seatrout was like catching mackerel. I am not proud of it now but I knew no different back then.

I have a fishery leaflet that shows in 1980 it was estimated as 90% of the seatrout stocks would perish at sea before returning to spawn. That same year one angler in Donegal caught 180 seatrout on one river.

Analysis of 1980 national catch shows that 8 tons of seatrout were taken by draft nets, 0.25 tons by drift nets and 51 tons by anglers. When you consider that some of these spate rivers would have a very small spawning stock (the larger seatrout of the rivers population) its not hard to see the damage was being done long before the fish farms were present. I am also sure that the drift net returns were very underestimated and they would have taken the bigger breeding females.

When fishery systems show numbers of seatrout taken by anglers they never show how much effort was put in to catch them. In other words how many anglers were fishing and for how many rod days.

All the river systems in the west are seeing a good return of seatrout I am glad to say. This is borne out by the rod catches now but again rod effort is excluded from these returns.

Most of the systems have very advanced fish counters on them but neither the individual fisheries nor the IFI will release these figures into the public domain. Why? Because the returns are so good I am glad to say. These counters can distinguish between seatrout and salmon and count the fish returning from the sea and those dropping back after spawning.

Just for those that don’t know the Ballynahinch fishery which includes lough Inagh featured on the primetime program, runs into the Beriteragh Bay where there have been a salmon farm for the past 2-3 years. If I’m not wrong Lough Inagh on the prime time program reported over 1000 seatrout caught on rod last year. The figure for the entire fishery would have been much higher.

To me this shows that properly run salmon farms and wild salmonid fisherys can co-exist. As a point of interest Norway is producing 1.25 million tons of farmed salmon this year. Norway is planning to produce 4 million tons by 2040.

Caz

A few points for this discussion:

The Seatrout collapse in the 80’s was all over the country while it did seem to be worse in the western region.
Prior to the collapse the amount of seatrout being taken by anglers was breath taking. I did it myself. As a young lad I thought catching seatrout was like catching mackerel. I am not proud of it now but I knew no different back then.

I have a fishery leaflet that shows in 1980 it was estimated as 90% of the seatrout stocks would perish at sea before returning to spawn. That same year one angler in Donegal caught 180 seatrout on one river.

Analysis of 1980 national catch shows that 8 tons of seatrout were taken by draft nets, 0.25 tons by drift nets and 51 tons by anglers. When you consider that some of these spate rivers would have a very small spawning stock (the larger seatrout of the rivers population) its not hard to see the damage was being done long before the fish farms were present. I am also sure that the drift net returns were very underestimated and they would have taken the bigger breeding females.

When fishery systems show numbers of seatrout taken by anglers they never show how much effort was put in to catch them. In other words how many anglers were fishing and for how many rod days.

All the river systems in the west are seeing a good return of seatrout I am glad to say. This is borne out by the rod catches now but again rod effort is excluded from these returns.

Most of the systems have very advanced fish counters on them but neither the individual fisheries nor the IFI will release these figures into the public domain. Why? Because the returns are so good I am glad to say. These counters can distinguish between seatrout and salmon and count the fish returning from the sea and those dropping back after spawning.

Just for those that don’t know the Ballynahinch fishery which includes lough Inagh featured on the primetime program, runs into the Beriteragh Bay where there have been a salmon farm for the past 2-3 years. If I’m not wrong Lough Inagh on the prime time program reported over 1000 seatrout caught on rod last year. The figure for the entire fishery would have been much higher.

To me this shows that properly run salmon farms and wild salmonid fisherys can co-exist. As a point of interest Norway is producing 1.25 million tons of farmed salmon this year. Norway is planning to produce 4 million tons by 2040.

Caz

Finally someone who understands whats really going on.

well put caz. i have just finished reading sean nixons book "guarding the silver" again and would recomend it to anyone interested in the history of the commemara salmonid fisheries over the last 50 years.
it still amazes me that the fishery owners and managers are still putting down the quality of the fishing in connemara, i was under the impresion that these people are supposed to promote their fisheries. even the editor of irelands leading angling magazine said on tv last week that the connemara fisheries are still decimated when . the same man that wrote a glowing article in rthe same magazine about a day spent on inagh last year!!
the reason that no counter data is available is that the person who was contracted to provide the it sofware for the whole system has left the country and has retained the intelectual rights to the info...hence no figures!!!
i do know from a source in ballinahinch that 3000 salmon passed over the counter there in 2009.
i have requested the counter figures from the ifi under the freedom of information act , so we will see.

Hey Joyster,

If you get no results in your endevour of getting the number of fish going over the western fish counters why not put in a freedom of information request to IFI on the cost it took to purchase install and maintain the fish counters for the last number of years. I for one would like to see if tax payers money has been used with no results available. Most of these counters are on private fisheries as well.

Caz

Been following this discussion with deep interest, but is the problem solely the threat to sea trout and wild salmon? Farm fish have to be fed with other fish and I'd be very worried that the western seaboard is going to be scraped clean of everything that moves to keep any superfarms supplied. I believe there's an entire industry in the Far East dedicated to so-called "trash" fish - sprat, small fish, and non-commercial species - to feed their fish farms, and vast areas of their seas have become lifeless, with nothing left for other species to feed on.

I read this on the Irish Times website and thought it might be of interest..

'PROFESSOR Mark Costello, chair of World Register of Marine Species and president of the International Association of Biological Oceanography has written to the Minister for Marine, Simon Coveney, advising him of recent incorrect information in the media regarding whether sea lice from salmon farms can cause problems on wild fish, according to Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE)'

Here is the link to the article

http://www.irishtimes.com/science-sets- ... -1.1397619

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environm ... -1.1358669
Another interesting article too although in reading the arguments and statements from the salmon farming lobby it becomes apparent that they really don't give a toss.