The State's first serious initiative to manage wild salmon stocks may be on the verge of collapse, following a decision by anglers to reject proposed new legislation.
The Federation of Irish Salmon and Sea Trout Anglers (FISSTA) has accused the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Dr Woods, of betraying the spirit of a Government task force on salmon management.
The task force agreement, brokered by Prof Noel Wilkins of NUI Galway, managed to achieve a consensus among commercial fishermen and anglers which had eluded many administrations over the past three decades. FISSTA, the official representative body of salmon anglers, was one of the groups which signed up to the deal, but it is now objecting to the implementation of some of the details.
Specifically, the Minister's determination to introduce tagging on salmon from May 1st came under criticism from FISSTA members at an extraordinary general meeting in Westport, Co Mayo, last weekend.
The tags and quotas scheme, which was recommended by the Wilkins task force, is designed to improve information on the state of the wild salmon stock. Currently, annual catches are based on dealers' returns for commercially landed fish, but only estimates are available for fish caught by anglers.
The proposal to extend tagging to anglers has been rejected by FISSTA, on the grounds that it claims tags were meant only to apply to commercial fishermen as part of a quota system. "We are sports fishermen, and our policy is not to catch for commercial reasons, so we do not see why this should be applied to us," Mr Richard Behal, president of FISSTA, said yesterday.
The task force recommended that quotas be applied to both the commercial and angling sectors. However, during the task force meetings there was an understanding that the sale of rod-caught fish would be banned, thus ruling out tags for anglers. Legal advice to the Government indicates that introduction of such a ban would not be possible.
In its current newsletter FISSTA describes the latest tagging proposals as "counterproductive" and a "betrayal" of what was agreed with the former minister of State for the marine, Mr Eamon Gilmore, in 1996. Referring to the recommendations on drift-net fishery, which effectively guaranteed legal use of mono-filament net in exchange for a restricted season, FISSA says little progress has been made to limit drift-net activity.
"All we have seen is the offshore drift nets continue to take 80 per cent of the harvest, and a marked decline for most rivers in the number of salmon being taken by both the inshore draft nets and anglers," FISSTA says.
Recent figures on salmon catches indicate the wild stock is in a much healthier state than many anglers would like to admit. The returns, which are based on figures compiled by regional fisheries boards and submitted to the Marine Institute, show that fish caught by drift-net represented 69.6 per cent of the 1998 total; draft-net landings comprised 12.5 per cent; trap 1.9 per cent; snap-net 0.4 per cent; and estimated rod catch 15.6 per cent.
The value of the salmon caught by rod, versus caught commercially, has also been revised in figures supplied by the Marine Institute. Speaking during Dail Question Time last November, the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources confirmed that the total value of commercially caught salmon is around £7.4 million to the economy, based on 1997 figures; a considerable increase on the £2.3 million quoted by the central and regional fisheries boards in their five-year plan. The latter figure was based on 1996 Central Statistics Office figures.
