Minister backs the tagging of wild salmon

The Minister for the Marine, Mr Fahey, is supporting the tagging scheme for measuring the state of wild salmon stocks, despite protests over the weekend by the Federation of Irish Sea Trout and Salmon Anglers.

The National Salmon Commission, which initiated the scheme with the Minister and fisheries boards on January 1st last, is due to meet next week. "The Minister respects the advice of the commission, which he established last year," a spokesman for Mr Fahey said. "We need to know more about the size of the stock, and this is why tagging of salmon and sea trout and use of logbooks was introduced."

Anglers and commercial salmon fishermen signed up to the tagging measure as one of a series recommended by a Government task force on management of the stock in 1996.

Figures just released by the Central Fisheries Board (CFB) show a rise in the wild salmon catch last year, but the new scheme will give a more accurate picture, according to the chief executive of the CFB, Mr John O'Connor.

The total recorded Irish salmon catch for last year is estimated at 225,400 fish, weighing 615 tonnes. This compares to an estimated catch of 180,477 salmon, weighing 515 tonnes, in 1999. Some 623 tonnes were recorded in 1998.

The estimated proportion of the rod-and-line catch as a percentage of the total was 16 per cent last year, down from 19.1 per cent in 1999. This is attributed to a 35 per cent fall in numbers of fish caught by the Eastern Regional Fisheries Board. Overall catches were up in all other fishery board regions. The south-west took the largest share, at 61,982 fish, followed by the north-west with 38,677.

The drift-net fishery accounted for 72 per cent of the total catch, a rise of 5 per cent over 1999. The proportion taken by the draft-net fishery fell to 11.3 per cent, from 12.8 per cent the previous year. The CFB notes that the catch taken by other commercial methods has fallen below 1 per cent for the first time, largely due to the cessation of trapping on the Moy and Corrib systems, and a reduced take by snap-net users.

Overall, stock levels still remain "seriously low", Mr O'Connor says. Catches have reduced by 54 per cent in the last five years, he notes.