Salmon Extinct In Less Than 10 years

In the next 10 years we are expected to lose almost all Salmon in not only North Wales but the entire Welsh rivers systems.

Natural Resources Wales’s recently published report sadly, predicts that salmon and sewin face extinction in many Welsh rivers.

Gail Davies Walsh, CEO of Afonydd Cymru says; ‘It has become obvious that our rivers can no longer support these iconic species if things stay the same. The issues they face are truly overwhelming. Across Wales sewage spills, anaerobic digester failures, slurry spills, floods, droughts, over-abstraction, metals, chemicals and pharmaceuticals are all contributing to the decline. Considering sea survival rates for salmon are around a fifth of what they used to be 50 years ago, our rivers must support more fish, not less.

If these species are to stand any chance of recovery, an original and radical approach will be needed. It isn’t enough to maintain the current status quo. It isn’t going to be enough to deliver just a little bit more.

European environmental law needs to not only be established in devolved primary legislation in Wales, it needs to be enforced, as does our own legislation. Without effective regulation and enforcement, world class legislation becomes third rate. Salmon, sewin and other fish species desperately need our regulators not to afford any polluting sector a light touch approach. All polluters must be brought to book, something that is not currently happening in Wales.

The management of rivers needs to change too. This should happen on a catchment basis, from the headwaters to the estuary and not by political and administrative area. We need an immediate end to the mistakes that are being made through planning, permitting and development due to human-imposed boundaries.

Considering the sources of many of the problems for Welsh rivers, there is an argument that they would have been better served by a European soils directive, in conjunction or even instead of the Water Framework Directive. Proposals for such a directive were abandoned in 2016, with the UK being one of the countries to block it. We now need Welsh legislators to reconsider such legislation with, for example, the mandatory under-sowing of crops such as maize.- Gail Davies Walsh,

North Wales Rivers Trust work tirelessly to improve habitats and ecosystems of our waterways to preserve fish populations in North Wales. This is an uphill battle as shown by the figures below and we are expected to lose almost all In the next 10 years we are expected to lose almost all our Welsh Salmon in North Wales if conditions do not change. Welsh Salmon from our waterways in the next 10 years if nothing changes.

Figure 1 - Welsh Salmon % conservation limit available at: Natural Resource Wales (2023)

Welsh Salmon and Trout is a key target for the North Wales Rivers Trust. As can be seen by the figure above, the % conservation limit is currently dangerously low for Atlantic Salmon and is severely low in several of the rivers in our catchments. The dotted line represents the extinction threshold.

Figure 2 - Welsh Salmon % conservation limit for different rivers available at: Natural Resource Wales (2023)

The mean population in Wales is in decline with the Seiont and Dwyryd expected to have some of the steepest decline.

Laura Owen Sanderson, CEO of North Wales Rivers Trust says ‘ we are up against big corporations polluting, politics and arguments over legislation and funding caps. We quite frankly do not have time to sit around hashing out the finer points of legislation. We need the funds to act now and the uncompromising enforcement carried out against ALL polluters now.’

Not only is sewage an issue but there are numerous silent polluters impacting our rivers. Phosphorous so often talked about from agriculture is harmful to freshwater biodiversity at 0.01 mg pl. Freshwater pumping into our homes is laced with 50mg per litre (to compensate for the lead piping and to stop us being poisoned by lead). That means that one leaking pipe can devastate an entire river system.

Reasons for population decline

Overfishing

Catch and release has been introduced by Natural Resource Wales for all Salmon to help preserve the population. However, the salmon and sea trout migration is also affected by unregistered by catches at sea.

Climate Change

With record levels of drought in recent years, river levels often drop significantly affecting the ability for Salmon and Trout to migrate upstream. Climate change can also affect CSO release into our rivers by putting greater pressure on our sewage systems due to higher rainfall intensity. In 2021, Welsh Water was responsible for 101,522 sewage overflows. Higher rainfall also means higher sediment levels being washed into our rivers, smothering spawning grounds and washing away spawning gravels.

Spawning Site Deterioration

Several rivers have man made barriers that obstruct fish passage. This reduces the ability for returning fish to reach their spawning grounds. The longer they sit exposed in the river the more vulnerable they are to bird predation. Fast flowing rivers can also impede spawning sites as gravel beds are displaced causing complete loss of spawning habitat.

Limitations

Several methods are used to calculate the salmon population, one of which is the ‘rod catch’ method which calculates the number of salmon that are reported to be caught by rod. This method is influenced by the environment such as river flow and temperature and may not represent the true population. A recent statistical assessment of rod catches for salmon and sea trout in the Afan, Neath and Tawe demonstrated that the results were highly variable and may take several years to detect a population change.

Electrofishing also has shortcomings as the results are prone to errors and biases and the process depends highly on the catchability when using different fishing gear.

The Future

We work tirelessly to restore habitat and environmental quality to our rivers.

Our River Restoration Officer Dr. Liam Whitmore said:

“Through our river restoration projects which include excluding livestock, reintroducing spawning gravels and removing artificial barriers such as weirs, we are helping to expand the migratory and spawning grounds for fish, particularly salmon and sea trout, to their historical natural range and ensure future populations can recover and thrive”

North Wales Rivers Trust are committed to actively doing everything we can to protect the last remaining Salmon and Sea Trout. Look out for our new campaign highlighting the issues these magnificent fish face and what we can do as a community to protect them.