This huge jump in figures is the result of a concerted effort to restock sea trout to the Shetland Isles, following the long period of dramtically low numbers.

SASA secretary Alex Miller told the Shetland News:

“There got to be so few fish around people gave up on it. We had a restocking programme over the last few years when we put thousands of smolts into various areas lochs and burns.

The fish we restocked have obviously grown on, gone to sea and fattened up, then come back again. It is just the cycle of how the fish lives.

We are certainly happy that our restocking programme has been worthwhile. It has been very successful. We have been doing it for four or five years, but obviously it takes the fish a wee while to grow and return to sea.”

Full story at The Shetland News, here

While there are no figures for 2008 yet – Miller expects the number caught to be fewer than 400 – still a sizable catch is expected for this year.

This is yet another successful attempt to restock previously booming fish habitats: Shetland around the war years had been teeming with sea trout. Numbers have fallen as the result of a cumulative effect of a number of factors, including sea lice from fish farms, poaching, and seals. It is quite obvious that much of the problems are human, however, so it is good to see that the attempts to restock are starting to redress that balance.

Unfortunately, as with many similar stories up and down the British Isles, it remains to be seen whether or not stock levels will ever approach what they were in the past.

The objector to proposed developments in Aberdeen, research biologist Tony Hawkins, claimed that salmon were at significant risk of a negative impact.

Further, he said that as the site in question is a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) that any development which causes “significant deterioration” to habitats is against European guidelines.

It remains to be seen what decision is made here, but it is certainly a very interesting argument – and one which shows how far we have come in the past hundred or more years. I read a lot of old fishing books, and one thing that really sticks out is the numbers of salmon that used to be in my local river, the River Ure, until over-industrialisation decimated the species to approximately zero. Refilling the river with salmon has been a painfully slow process, and one which has met only limited success.

The book which details this best is called Gun, Rod and Rifle, and one passage in particular, which describes how the river was only ‘clean’ on Monday mornings, when all the mining in the locality had been on a weekend break is a particularly poignant reminder of how to do everything wrong.

Of course, what is proposed in Aberdeen is significantly less harmful than widespread lead mining – but the very fact salmon are being considered here must be good news for local fishermen and fishing related businesses.

Not to mention the otters!