Edition 119 / Autumn 2015 The Quarterly Magazine Of The Institute Of Fisheries Management Saving Our Salmon When we improve the freshwater environment salmon respond RIVER RHINE SALMON COMEBACK CAMPAIGN PINK THE VALUE SALMON OF SALMON Alien salmon caught in English waters Iconic species of the water environment SALMON AT SEA Big picture thinking is required for salmon at sea FISH Autumn 2015 The Water Authority Fish 119 APEM offers a fully integrated approach to the Inside this Fish 119 study and management of all freshwater environments edition Salmon are one of nature’s wonders of the world, returning to their home rivers after an epic migration at sea, often battling strong currents and leaping seemingly impassable 4 View from the Chair waterfalls to reach their spawning grounds to lay their 8 Saving Our Salmon eggs and produce the next generation. 14 The Value of Salmon They are an iconic aquatic species that people recognize as symbolising a healthy water environment, 18 Salmon at Sea however across the north Atlantic they are in decline. 22 The Rhine Salmon In 2014 38 of England’s 42 principal salmon rivers Comeback Campaign were assessed as being ‘at risk’ or ‘probably at risk’. 28 Pink Salmon In 2014 it was estimated that the number of salmon 30 The Conservation Column in the sea prior to their return to England and Wales rivers was 140,000, which is equivalent to ~560t. To 34 The Paul Coulson BLOG put this figure in perspective there are now 1,800 38 IFM News times this number of farmed Atlantic salmon globally. 44 In memory of Dave Jenkins The biggest single factor impacting the status of salmon populations has been declining marine Breaking News 45 survival, which has nearly halved over the last 20 48 Book Reviews years. This has been linked to climate change induced environmental changes potentially affecting 52 Members and their fish Aquatic Scientists BioLabs feeding opportunity. Environmental assessment, Leading UK provider of biological To give salmon greater resilience in the face of restoration and management from analysis to support aquatic environmental change it is critical that freshwater source to sea surveys Editorial Team: production is maximised. Lawrence Talks, Steve Axford, Ian Dolben, Peter Spillett, Valerie Holt, Paul Coulson, Within this edition we outline how the Environment John Gregory, Eamon Cusack Agency is working with partners to conserve and Field Surveys Remote Sensing enhance salmon. This is followed by Paul Knight, Hydromorphological and biological State-of-the-art technology for river IFM Chief Executive of Salmon and Trout Conservation surveys, fish passage studies and habitat and geomorphological LAB No 4441 ( Institute of Fisheries Management ) UK, highlighting the value of salmon. Tony Andrews, solutions, and catchment land use survey, land cover and invasive PO Box 679, Hull, HU5 9AX Executive Director of the Atlantic Salmon Trust, then sediment impact studies plant species mapping Tel: +44(0)845 388 7012 assesses the plight of salmon at sea and advocates E-mail: [email protected]. taking an holistic approach. We then look at international efforts to bring salmon back to the www.ifm.org.uk River Rhine. T: 0161 442 8938 E: [email protected] Find us on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter (@IFMFish) What is clear in these articles is that, in order to secure the future of salmon, there is a need to see salmon not only as a fisheries issue but as an iconic species that can galvanize interest and action to improve the Designed by POLAR 10 www.polar10.com water environment. Front cover: Leaping salmon Lawrence Talks - FISH editor Manchester Oxford Dorset Chester Edinburgh Cardiff Cambridge Hertfordshire © www.lauriecampbell.com [email protected] 3 FISH Autumn 2015 River Rhine Basel © Lawrence Talks of Wallonia in Italy as observers. The focus of this cooperation is the sustainable development of the Rhine, its floodplains and the good state of all waters in its watershed. Intensive use of water 58 million people live and work in the Rhine’s catchment and 20 million of them receive their drinking water from the Rhine system. Of a catchment of 200,000km2 about 8% is used for Salmon comeback © Michel Roggo Extinction settlements, 50% for agriculture and it is Europe’s most important industrial area. In the main The Rhine was once the largest salmon river in Rhine between Lake Constance and the mouth Europe. 100 years ago, there were millions of of the river, there are 21 big hydroelectric power River Rhine Salmon Comeback Campaign Comeback Salmon Rhine River Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in the Rhine and stations with a turbine performance of about 7 Campaign Comeback Salmon Rhine River its tributaries as the salmon utilised the vast billion kilowatt hours, which is sufficient for 2.5 catchment of Europe’s third biggest river, which million households. More than 800km of the stretches from the Dutch coast near Rotterdam Rhine as well as the rivers Neckar, Main, Moselle to its source in the Swiss Alps. and Sarre are navigable. With the industrial revolution the Rhine In the 1970s the Rhine was considered to be the was straightened, barriers and sluice gates sewer of Europe. Additionally the construction were constructed to provide for navigation, of dikes and straightening of the water course hydroelectric power stations were built and the has resulted in a loss of 85% of its flooplain and River Rhine Salmon waters became polluted. shortened the water course by more than 90km. By the middle of the 19th century, salmon In 1986 a fire in the Sandoz chemical factory near numbers were markedly declining and in Basel led to 30 tons of pesticide being washed Comeback Campaign response a salmon stocking programme was into the Rhine, which wiped out an estimated half initiated, an international salmon treaty was a million fish and turned the river red. This was passed, targeted at ‘increasing the stock an environmental catastrophe that in a matter of of salmon in the Rhine area’ and fishermen moments reversed 10 years of painstaking work Lawrence Talks having been to an Atlantic demanded the construction of ‘salmon ladders’ to clean up the Rhine. to provide fish passage over the numerous weirs Interestingly enough, however at the Salmon and barriers that were being built. However, Summit, a number of delegates saw this disaster Salmon Summit in Huningue in France despite all these efforts salmon became extinct in as a catalyst that galvanised international the Rhine by the 1950s. cooperation and action on the Rhine and led to about reopening the Rhine to salmon, Salmon having thrived in the Rhine for many the Rhine Action Programme (1986-2000) and thousands of years became extinct in just a Rhine 2020. reports back on progress being made hundred years because of man’s impacts on to return salmon to one of Europe’s the river. Rhine 2020 International cooperation to restore In January 2001, the ministers in charge of the Rhine adopted ‘Rhine 2020’, which is a great rivers. salmon to the Rhine programme for the sustainable development of In response to poor water quality in the the Rhine. The core parts of the programme, lower course of the Rhine, the International which support the implementation of the Commission for the Protection of the Rhine EC-Water Framework Directive and EC-Flood (ICPR) was founded in 1950. Members include Management Directive, are: Switzerland, France, Germany, Luxemburg, Netherlands and the European Union, together • Improving habitat connectivity with Austria, Lichtenstein, Belgium and the region • Implementing ‘Salmon 2020’ 22 23 FISH Autumn 2015 FISH Autumn 2015 populations. Across the Rhine system approximately 1,000ha of potential spawning and juvenile habitat has been identified, however so far only a quarter of this is accessible. For most of the Rhine, its habitat has been altered out of all recognition, from what was historically a heavily braided dynamic system to a straightened and engineered channel. Measures are being put into place to restore habitat and give more space to the river not only for biodiversity but also to manage flood risk, however the task is massive. As part of the Salmon Summit we visited Kembs Island near Basel where a new channel is being created River Rhine Salmon Comeback Campaign Comeback Salmon Rhine River as part of a river restoration scheme in an area Campaign Comeback Salmon Rhine River known as the Petit Camargue. Lawrence at Rhine Salmon Summit A further issue highlighted at the Salmon Summit was the impact of dams and engineered banks on natural river processes notably gravel • Reducing flood risk Fish passage replenishment. A bed load reactivation plan has • Further improving water quality Between 2000 and 2013, 481 barriers have been been drawn up which identifies areas of gravel • Groundwater protection. altered to improve fish passage. For example, depletion and surplus and includes proposals for • The continuous surveillance of the state of in the Rhine Delta (Nederrijn/Lek) three barrages lowering the level of barrages, promoting natural the Rhine have been equipped with bypasses at a cost of processes and adding gravel. However such ~€7 million and on the main stem of the Rhine work is hugely costly with an estimate of many Considerable progress has been made with fish passes have been built at two impoundments Kembs dam River Rhine tens of millions of euros to implement the plan. over 96% of the population within the Rhine at Iffezheim and Gambsheim at a cost of ~€20 catchment now connected to wastewater million. On the tributaries of the Rhine numerous Restocking them upstream in a barge, though this was not treatment and many of the major industrial plants weirs have been changed, lowered and fish seen as a sustainable solution at the Salmon Following the extinction of salmon in the Rhine, have their own wastewater treatment facilities.