Marine research budget under scrutiny

THE State could have built a hospital, bought 50 small marine research vessels or four Naval patrol ships for the money spent and lost on the sea trout controversy to date, according to estimates made by the salmon farming industry.

Now, the Minister of State for the Marine, Mr Eamon Gilmore, has initiated an investigation into the scientific research associated with the fishery decline, on foot of revelations of "large scale discrepancies" in the Governments monitoring programme. An independent evaluation of 1992-96 scientific data by Dr Ian Cowx of the University of Hull, which is to be published tomorrow, says the evidence is too flawed to link the stocks decline to fish farms.

One of the leading scientists associated with the controversy has also called for a "cold hard look" at the research programme, which is costing about £1 million a year. "We need to stand back and see if this is achieving what we set out to do," Prof Emer Colleran, chairwoman of the Government's Sea Trout Monitoring and Advisory Group, told The Irish Times, speaking before publication of the Cowx report.

On research and rehabilitation alone, work on the sea trout has been costing almost as much annually as the quoted value to tourism of a healthy stock, yet the latest scientific results on the decline of the fish, for 1995, say that rod catches are down again and recommend more research, supported by EU and Government funds. These results have been called into question by the Cowx evaluation.

The decline of sea trout stocks on the western seaboard was first quantified in 1989 and resulted in Bord Failte removing listings for sea trout fisheries from some of its promotional literature. Considerable research into the problem identified juvenile sea lice emanating from fish farm cages as the main culprit, while some scientists dissented and pointed to climatic factors.

The Department of the Marine, which first quoted the estimated cost of the research at £1 million annually in early 1995, says that current expenditure is now calculated "project by project".

In some cases staff costs are given; in others, not. Three programmes are contracted out by the Marine Institute: sea lice monitoring, at £150,000 a year; sea trout pathology, at £13,000 for 1997, and a preliminary strategy for elimination of sea lice larvae and development of a management database for diseases, costing £136,700 over two years. In addition, the Marine Institute participates in the EUfunded sea trout rehabilitation programme run under the tourism angling measure by the Salmon Research Agency, the central and regional fisheries boards and private fishery owners, at £1.7 million over four years to 1999.

Supplementing this, the central and regional fisheries boards carry out sea trout conservation, management and development works as part of their remit. Costs associated with game angling are about £9 million annually, the majority of which is spent on salmon. Costs also cover a sea trout sampling programme which has been in place since 1990.

The latest Sea Trout Working Group report, a copy of which has also been seen by The Irish Times, has found a reversal in the trend towards recovery which had been recorded the year before. The data for 1995 show only two western fisheries, in Burrishoole and Inagh/Ballynahinch, have increased rod catches of sea trout. Delphi, Erriff, Kylemore - which had recorded a rise in 1994 - have noted a decline, while Newport and Costello, which were "comparable" in 1994, are down on 1994 figures.

Dr Ken Whelan of the Salmon Research Agency, which has been conducting an EU funded rehabilitation programme in Co Mayo, has defended the juvenile sea lice hypothesis on the basis that there has been "unbelievable consistency" in the data produced over the past six years. "We haven't seen this decline occur in areas other than those with a concentration of fish farms," he said earlier this month.

However, in his evaluation, Dr Cowx says that although fish farming has been implicated in similar sea trout collapses in Norway and Scotland, collapses had also occurred in England and Wales where there was no marine fish farming in the immediate area.

Dr Cowx has recommended a fresh start for sea trout research, saying that previous reports should be rendered invalid unless discrepancies in data are addressed. He says genetic fingerprinting techniques should be used to examine lice sources and the scope of research should be extended.