For a long time, and for most of us, the only salmon was John West's - and it came in a tin. Now, salmon is widely available outside tins, largely since the growth of the fish farm, not only in Ireland (and originally perhaps, from Norway or Norwegian-owned organisations). In parts of the world, salmon in the wild is under threat, and not only our own Atlantic salmon, salmo salar. The January Scientific American reports that in Canada, the authorities are seriously worried. And there they are dealing with several different kinds of salmon - sockeye, coho, chinook, pink and chum.
From the pictures you often see on TV of bears standing in a Canadian river and clawing the fish out without great effort, you would think the supply to be good. But the magazine tells us that the decline has been going on for more than half a century, and is attributed to logging, hydro-electric development, mining, urbanisation, over-fishing and, lately, climate changes. Some experts believe that present efforts will only prop up the population "until another climate shift - perhaps the end of the current El Nino cycle - enables more salmon to survive the ocean and return to fresh water to spawn." A recent article in the magazine of the Hamburg weekly newspaper Die Zeit deplores the passing of one great salmon fisher of the old style, his care with the fish not to damage them earning for him the highest price in Billingsgate in London. Today, the writer, Rainer Luyken, says, the local fish farmers kill in one morning as many salmon as Willie Muir would in a year. The day of the salmon as a delicacy for snobs is gone, say the fish farmers. Farmed salmon are the expression of a democratic age.
How are we doing in Ireland? The overall catch of wild salmon, nets and rod anglers has halved in the 1990s from the catch of the 1980s. But not to despair. Last season the Munster Blackwater gave 10,000 salmon on rod and line. The Moy, which has had some great years, yielded only 4,000 - well down. But that may be explained by the fact that it was constantly in flood. Let's not argue the merits of the wild fish against the other, but if you have a family member or friend who is an angler, you know that you are getting the real thing. And the real thing is the real thing. (Figures from Central Fisheries Board: thanks.)