It is more than a matter of sentimental tear-in-the-eye stuff; it is a real sign that we think less of ourselves and of the country, that we are careless with a great heritage handed down to us by Nature or God or evolution or the conformation of the world or however you like to put it. We are walking away from something beautiful, mysterious, driven by strong forces for centuries and millennia, which we on this island are fortunate to have. We are considering the salmon, the Atlantic salmon, that great creature which, starting from an egg in small, often very small, rivulets in this country, dares to cross the Atlantic, remaining in the ocean for one or more years and always coming back to its own natal strip of water, there to procreate and start the cycle again. This is not the time to face the fact that something in our national heritage is being allowed to slip away from us. Only the other weekend a young man was fishing in a small river he had known all his life. He was after trout. An hour or so into the afternoon he gave up. He found he was raising only salmon parr, small fish which in perhaps May of next year will go down to the sea as smolts on the great adventure. Lucky young man to see that salmon are reaching his river and breeding; lucky parish to have such life and riches in its bounds.
For as Ken Whitaker, one of the fathers of the State, put it in a letter to this newspaper two days ago, it is essential that we see to it that more salmon enter our rivers to spawn. Nor is this an attack on the netsmen. Our total catch of wild salmon has dropped since the 1970s by 60 per cent. Most of the catch taken, of course, by netsmen. But Dr. Whitaker points out that local communities could be recompensed for suspended commercial fishing and once stocks had improved, employment could be ensured by co-operation as to counters on river traps and generally an increase in employment through many more tourist anglers. "This form of managed commercial exploitation could be more economic and scientific than a resumption of netting." Some would put after that "on the same scale". You may not be an angler, or even an eater of fish, but the salmon is important to you.
Tomorrow, Saturday, May 1st, in the Corrib Great Southern Hotel at 2 p.m. a debate takes place: "Finfish Farming - Destroying Our Angling Heritage? An Angler's Perspective." But, as Dr. Whitaker stresses, the arrival of wild salmon in our rivers is the priority. Y