news/editorial

10 July 2016 News/Editorial

So what would you do, trying to say something relevant for those of you good enough to bother reading this?

I say this because it, the Tweed, all seems so far away, with the Algarvian sun beating down, with a steady daytime high of 35 degrees and over 20 degrees at night, warmer than it is with you during the day.

“Too hot” I hear you say, but it isn’t, always a strong breeze and humidity incredibly low, 59%, whereas it is close to 100% at Coldstream today, so my BBC website tells me.

So far away, yet on Wednesday I played 9 holes of golf (rather well, since you ask) just outside Dublin and was having a cup of tea in my Portuguese hotel by 5.30pm (no time difference).

Ah, the wonders of modern travel.

Most of you would say there are no Atlantic salmon in Portugal.

You would be wrong…...but not by much.

Northern Portugal, close to the Spanish border, has two salmon rivers which mark the southern range of the Atlantic salmon. Salmon fishing is allowed between 1st March and 31st July in the Minho and Lima rivers.

The problem, and one we should take seriously in these times of global warming, is heat.

Salmon do not like it in the UK, let alone in Portugal, or, completely absurdly, the Yemen!

So salmon in both Portugal and Northern Spain are having a tough time. General Franco was a keen angler and used to keep the salmon rivers there largely for himself and his guests…..the sort of thing dictators can, and do, do.

But, for how much longer will the Atlantic salmon be able to survive there? Or, as we come north, in eastern France and even the south of England?

The further south you go, the more important is water temperature for juveniles, in both hatching and surviving. Too hot is fatal, shade is vital, as is the riffle, pool, run off/draw sequence…...no canalisation and no tree clearances on the banks (other than those black conifers which forbid all life and are increasingly being replaced by deciduous trees).

The Tweed is comparatively safe from all this, both because it is so far north and because so much has been done by the Tweed Foundation, The RTC, the Tweed Forum, SEPA and other agencies to protect it.

But if the southern range of the Atlantic salmon moves further north, out of Portugal and towards the southern UK, as the northern hemisphere heats up, we will have to do even more to keep our rivers cool...

…...and just as our young salmon like it.