Call to end drift netting for salmon

SALMON stocks in Irish rivers, particularly the south and east, could run out unless the Government cleans up our waterways and restricts drift netting, the Green Party said yesterday.

"Poor inland management of rivers, pollution of our waters and the continuation of drift netting at sea have all contributed over the years to the decline of salmon stock which now stands at an all-time low," said party councillor and European election candidate, Mary White.

"Remedial measures need to be taken immediately to cease drift netting for salmon and to support international best practice for their protection.

"It is a poor reflection on the Government that it continues to bow to the small vocal minority of the interceptory drift net sector while ignoring the cost to salmon stocks on a worldwide level. Ireland is now out of step with Canada, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland and Scotland, who have all joined the North Atlantic Salmon Fund to cease drift netting," she said.

"We need proper inshore management of rivers, better resources for fishery boards and an end to tokenism from successive governments with regard to salmon stocks."

Green Party Fisheries spokesman Eamon Ryan said we were the last country either side of the Atlantic to allow off-shore salmon drift netting.

"The Green Party favours a buyout of commercial licences. At the very least, we should be introducing a single stock management system where commercial fishing for salmon is restricted to individual bays or estuaries rather than the open sea," said Mr Ryan.

Federation of Irish Salmon and Sea Trout Anglers vice chairman, Noel Carr, said that Marine Minister Dermot Ahern had a golden opportunity with the presidency of the EU to end drift netting for wild Atlantic salmon.

This season alone over 200,000 wild Atlantic salmon will be killed by Irish drift nets. Nearly 90% of these will be killed by the same type of drift nets the minister acknowledges to be a lethal killer of the dolphin and porpoise species.