Fishing for the truth about angling in Scotland
GOOD TO see BBC Scotland finally getting stuck in to the controversy surrounding salmon farming this evening with a special investigation into the risks of sea lice to stocks of wild migratory Atlantic salmon and sea trout.
Continue ReadingIT IS bewildering to have to digest the variety of conflicting reports on the status of Scotland’s Atlantic salmon population in recent weeks.
Continue ReadingIT is comforting to note that I am not alone in identifying the SNP Government in Scotland of being long on rhetoric but coming up short on action when it concerns many aspects of marine conservation. And Richard Lochhead, the fisheries minister stands accused again of being out of touch with reality in the latest…
Continue ReadingSSACN, the Scottish sea angling conservation pressure group, is running a series of thought-provoking articles this month on many aspects of the sport. The organisation is a touch-stone for all the key elements affecting marine conservation around our shores and plays an important part in helping to guide official policy in many areas. It has…
Continue Reading“BULLYING TACTICS” by salmon farmers forced the Scottish Government into a policy u-turn on publishing the results of audits into fish farm escapes and disease infestation, one of the UK’s oldest conservation charities claims today. Threatened with possible legal action by the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation (SSPO) if the results of the inspection reports were…
Continue ReadingTHE wild fish lobby can huff and puff as much as it likes, but the latest spat over coastal salmon netting around Scotland demonstrates just how divided the warring factions are and illustrates pointedly Government dithering about how to solve the issues.
Continue ReadingRELATIONS between wild game fishing interests and the Scottish Government over fish farming controls have suffered another reverse with the collapse of a key agreement set up to try to establish peace between the salmon industry and anglers.
Continue ReadingTUNE in tonight to BBC-2 where David Attenborough takes a long, hard look at the state of the planet’s oceans following one of the most ambitious scientific studies of our time and asks the question: Is it too late to save the diversity of our seas? Meanwhile, Scotland’s environment minister, Richard Lochhead, has signalled a…
Continue ReadingINCREASING tension between Scottish wild salmon interests, and the Government and multi-million pound aquaculture industry, is becoming more apparent in the wake of last week’s Loch Lochy smolt escape. The Government has since claimed that the salmon farming industry and wild fish interests are cooperating to take a “huge step forward” in containment and make…
Continue ReadingSCOTTISH aquaculture interests today apologised for the Loch Lochy smolt escape and pledged to work with Government fish health inspectors to investigate the causes and improve staff training. Marine Harvest, owner of the Lochy farm also gave an undertaking that it would “co-operate fully with wild fisheries interests to re-capture any fish” it could. Gideon…
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