Save our Salmon, please sign the petition

nsfas logo.jpg

The Wild Atlantic Salmon is widely recognised as the King of game angling species. Salmon anglers and conservationists are passionate about these fish and have given freely of their time and money to conserve and protect them.

The Atlantic Salmon and sea trout are now under serious threat and in recent years stocks have been steadily declining to a point where all conservation groups have become alarmed and all government agencies have been tasked with bringing in legislation to protect the small numbers of fish we now have. Anglers and conservationists have also fought hard to eradicate commercial netting for this species in our coastal waters thereby attempting to enhance numbers.

Anglers of Ireland have also been conserving stocks on a voluntary basis along with some Irish rivers been closed to all angling as a result of the declining numbers of wild salmon and sea trout.

salmon.JPG

Interest in this by NSFAS (No Salmon Farms At Sea), was initially sparked by the announcement of a major development in Bantry Bay and then Galway Bay, and we have now learned that one is also planned for the Tory Island area of Donegal which would impact on rivers in Northern Ireland.

The picture seems to have developed even more with the announcement that the governments both north and south have applied to the EU for PGI status for “Irish” salmon.

They seem to have neglected to add that this application refers to “farmed” fish . This was a joint application and since then it would seem that, with the recent announcement regarding the Glenarm Salmon Farm signing a contract to supply farmed fish to Hong Kong, that both governments are hell bent on promoting an industry which will have the potential to decimate our already endangered wild stocks.

Couple that with the information that has come from the Inland Fisheries Ireland Study in the Republic, which clearly states that 39% of our salmon smolts heading to sea are dying due to sea lice infestation. These smolts are the main life blood of all future stocks. It is imperative we do all we can to protect them.

sealice.JPG

NSFAS have set up an all-Ireland Group and will be voicing our concerns at every possible opportunity.

We have been looking at this issue for some time and we believe the time is right to bring this to the attention of the public, the Irish Government and the Stormont Executive. Ministers in Stormont recently agreed, unanimously, in the executive debate on Wild Salmon Decline that the situation needs to be addressed.

To allow any growth of the farmed salmon industry at this time would be a massive error in judgement. NSFAS recognise the issues with the number of salmon farms already in place on our coastline and are realistic enough to expect that they are not going away. We would like to mirror the policy of other groups who would like to see them brought inland where possible. We would also like to see them regulated more stringently to deal with sea lice control and commensurate penalties imposed for any and all breaches.

One might think that farmed Salmon would take the pressure off the wild salmon but unfortunately the opposite is true. NSFAS agrees with the recent statement by Minister Fergus O’ Dowd on offshore salmon farming and welcomes the development of Ireland’s aquaculture sector, provided any development complies with Ireland’s obligations under relevant EU environmental legislation, particularly the Habitats Directive, and does not adversely affect salmon and sea trout stocks.

The Irish Government has recently decided to expand the salmon farming industry in Ireland and one of the first additions will be a ‘Mega’ salmon farm in Galway Bay that will produce 15,000 tonnes of farmed salmon and will have the capability of producing 30,000 tonnes of farmed salmon making this the biggest salmon farm in the world.

This proposal has been put to the public with a lot of misleading information and concerns which we have listed on our page. These concerns are based on scientific reports by respected authors and scientists of the IFI.

More info on how you can get involved and help and a link to the petition can be found here: http://www.nosalmonfarmsatsea.com/

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

It is also worth mentioning that as salmon smolts have no scales they are not very good at defending themselves from sealice.
It only takes a small number of lice to kill a smolt. They are in fact very vulnerable from the time they leave freshwater and as all these fishfarms are proven to attract large blooms of sealice it can only spell disaster for our migrating wild salmon smolts.

Interesting takeouts from Matt Hayes FB page on the subject today

https://www.facebook.com/matthayesfish

Because farmed salmon are intensively farmed thus producing massive amounts of sea lice. When the salmon are treated for the lice it does not kill the lice but forces them to leave the salmon and find new hosts which unfortunately are the wild salmon and sea trout stocks, especially destructive if the juvenile fish are targeted. Our once prolific sea trout rivers here on the West coast of Scotland are now almost devoid of sea trout and salmon numbers are a fraction of what they used to be. But profit wins over ecology.

These salmon farms are an environmental disaster. They are responsible for killing wild salmon and virtually wiping out sea trout in some rivers because of the parasites that they produce. Because the farm cages are located in the sea but on the route taken by migratory wild fish, the parasites infect the wild fish on their way to and from the sea. The effluent produced by these farms is incredible. It kills all life on the sea bed in the surrounding area. Escapes from the cages are legion. The escapee fish breed with the wild fish and corrupt the gene pool. The list of problems is well - documented but it is governments, notably Norway and the Scottish assembly whom are blatantly ignoring this issue.

Key issues are sealice infestations that occur around salmon farms and affect migrating smolts (some reports suggesting up to 40% are killed by sealice). Another reason is that farmed salmon escape from the farms and interbreed with the wild fish affecting the genetics of the wild fish.

If more people knew more and salmon farming they would think twice before buying farmed salmon.

More here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-h ... s-20236291