Madam, - Anglers have been stating consistently that poaching is rife in a number of areas for which the South Western Regional Fisheries Board holds responsibility for protection of salmon stocks, so it was no surprise to read in a recent article in The Irish Times that major rivers in the south-west are effectively "being abandoned to poachers".
Neither was it surprising to read that this statement came from fishery officers in that area, because these are the frustrated people who know that they are not getting the resources to protect fish stocks.
What has happened to the proposed "poaching hotline" to fisheries boards which anglers have been requesting? A questionnaire in the mail a number of days after a specific poaching complaint to the South Western Regional Fisheries Board is certainly not a "hotline".
Thankfully, there is a hotline available to anglers in the Killarney valley and this is to the Garda Síochána in Killarney. This has proved very effective in recent years.
Anglers willingly paid the huge increase in their salmon licence fee this season in the expectation that the extra income would be used by fishery boards to maintain the jobs of fishery officers. That has not happened in the south-west.
This federation asks why fishery officers are being deployed to help manage State fisheries on the river Laune in Kerry, rather than being allowed tackle poaching in the estuary of that river.
Fisheries management could be provided by angling clubs at no cost to the State and such voluntary management would free fishery officers to undertake duties which they were employed to carry out and want to carry out. - Yours, etc.,
D.J. O'RIORDAN,
Secretary,
Killarney Valley,
Anglers' Federation,
Fair Hill,
Killarney,
Co Kerry.