Sir, - The Bunowen river flows past this house over a series of boulder weirs, built a century ago to make pools for our native white trout. In each of the eight pools I used to count, in fine September weather, between a dozen and 20 trout; say 100 to 150 handsome little fish. That was until the late 1980s, when the salmon farms got going and the trout began to disappear.
Last September, I counted a total of five white trout along my land. They swam just outside the window where I am writing. This year I see none. There are a few salmon, the little three pounders that scrape the illegal acts out at sea. But no sea trout visible. Not one.
Ireland's wisest fishery experts have recommended that no new salmon farms be built within 20 kilometres of the mouth of a sea trout river. There are new or extended salmon cages 8.5 km from the Bunowen mouth, by Clare Island; and others just 20 km off, beside Inishdegil in the Killary Harbour entrance. The Killary cages are six km from the mouth of another little river, the Carrowniskey, which has also lost most of its white trout.
To declare my interest, I have some fishing rights on the Bunowen and the Carrowniskey. Both rivers, though, belong mostly to the Irish people, through the Western Fisheries Board. Amid talk of a sea trout recovery, your readers may like to know what is being taken from them. Yours, etc.,
Tully Lodge, Louisburgh,
Co Mayo.