AST – It’s time to solve the mystery of our missing salmon
Somewhere on their journey, wild salmon numbers are being decimated. For every 100 salmon that leave our rivers for the sea, less than five return – a decline of nearly 70% in just 25 years.
The warning is stark. If this trend continues, one of our most iconic species could become endangered in our lifetime.
What needs to be done?
It is time to solve the mystery of the missing salmon before it’s too late. We must take action on a scale never seen before in order to identify and prove what is happening to wild salmon and determine how to halt this species’ decline. Put simply, if we can find out what is happening on the salmon’s journey from the headwaters of the rivers to the sea, we can take steps to help increase survival.
The task at hand is momentous but the action needed is perfectly clear. We urgently need to know:
• What are the migration pathways our smolts use?
• How do we quantify the major impacts on their mortality during their migration?
• How to improve their survival rate so more fish return?
It’s easy for many to speculate on the cause of wild salmon’s decline, but unfounded speculation cannot and will not solve this problem.
The Missing Salmon Project
This is why the Atlantic Salmon Trust has launched The Missing Salmon Project – a campaign to raise £1 million by the end of 2018 to fund a tagging and tracking project that will uncover the secrets of the missing salmon to help prevent further decline of this iconic species.
The Missing Salmon Project will be the largest acoustic tracking project for salmon in Europe and will track smolts further than ever before. If funding is secured, in 2019 the tagging project will start its work in the Moray Firth – the route taken by 20% of all salmon that leave the UK. The lessons learned from the study in the Moray Firth will provide valuable insights that are transferable to other populations of salmon around the UK.
What can you do to help?
It’s vital that we raise the funds needed to carry out The Missing Salmon Project to help us understand what is preventing wild salmon from returning to our rivers and give our generation the opportunity to save the species before it’s too late.
To help us raise £1 million to tag and track wild salmon on a scale never seen before in Europe visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/themissingsalmonproject
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