news/editorial

10 April 2016 News/Editorial

That there is a lacuna, and a potentially very dangerous one, in the Government’s Categorisation of Scottish salmon rivers’ Conservation Status is obvious to anyone who gives it a moment’s thought.

This is nobody’s fault, just that the new Categorisation system is in its infancy, even pre- infancy, and needs to be refined to meet all its vital conservation objectives.

The Tweed, it is proposed, is Category 1, which essentially means no restrictions on killing beyond the legal ones, ie nothing killed inside estuary limits before 31st March, or beyond estuary limits all year.

This is, of course, partly very sensible, but partly bonkers because nobody seriously imagines that killing a spring salmon on 1st April is the same in conservation terms as killing a small grilse in September.

But that is what the law/new categorisation system would seem to allow.

This is covered, in practice and in theory at present, by voluntary agreement with both rods and nets that they will kill no salmon until either the middle of June (nets) or end of June (rods).

But what if either a rod fishery or a net fishery decided, totally legally, to ignore the RTC voluntary measures, and started to kill salmon (rods to eat, nets for sale) on 1st April?

It could happen, as indeed, legally, could any rod proprietor start netting and sell the fish they catch after 1st April.

This is mad, and trust/ voluntary measures sometimes are not good enough.

Two things need to change:

First, netting, other than for research, should be banned by law above a certain point on the river.

Secondly, it cannot be right that our Tweed spring salmon are in Category 1.

Legally, they can be killed after 1st April, which would apply to fresh fish coming in after 1st April but also , absurdly, to any fish which came in before 31st March, when it was illegal to kill them, but which are caught higher up the river well after 31st March, when it is legal to kill them.

That killing a springer is, in law, treated just the same as killing one of our September salmon and grilse is what is bonkers; in other words, conservation categorisation should not apply to rivers regardless of the time of year, as different stocks within rivers clearly have different conservation statuses.

Our Tweed springers should be in Category 3 (no killing by law anywhere or by anybody) until 30th June, thereafter by all means Category 1, albeit with rods exercising care, as now, not to kill old springers they catch in the summer and early autumn.

So, ban all netting above a certain point (above tidal waters?), and give our different stocks their appropriate conservation categories, not an illogical blanket one for the whole river at all times of year.

If we can achieve both of these, those who might be tempted to kill our most vulnerable salmon stocks, for personal gain or for any other selfish reason, will be thwarted.

Good.

That is as it should be.