Fisheries board seizes untagged salmon

BETWEEN 500 and 600 untagged salmon, worth up to €50,000, have been seized from a Kerry commercial fish premises, the South Western Regional Fisheries Board confirmed yesterday.

Board manager Aidan Barry described the three-tonne haul as “substantial” and said it was the biggest seizure of fish in the board’s area, which covers much of Cork and Kerry, in 10 years.

He said legal action would be taken against the company and the board is consulting its legal advisers with a view to a prosecution.

Mr Barry, who declined to identify the firm involved, said staff would be continuing their checks on commercial premises throughout the region.

There’s a legal obligation on fishermen to tag all salmon before selling them.

The seizure was made on Tuesday by board staff in the process of checks on commercial premises.

Staff confiscated the fish, which the board can sell on for the best possible price, according to Mr Barry.

The season for commercial salmon fishing at sea finished on July 31, but Mr Barry could not say if the wild salmon in question had been freshly caught.

During the summer, wild salmon were making upwards of €70, but would be much more expensive when smoked.

SWRFB assistant chief executive Dr Patrick Buck said officers carried out routine but intensive checks on “over 200 premises” each year in Cork and Kerry. In addition they conducted audits on “fish in and fish out”. The possession of even one untagged salmon was an offence, Dr Buck warned. Some of the salmon weighed more than 20lb, he confirmed.

The board controls the biggest wild salmon commercial fishery in Europe with an annual quota of 18,218 salmon.

Scale tests would be carried out to determine when the salmon were caught, Dr Buck said.

Fishermen are issued with a limited number of tags and are expected to inform the board when those tags are used.

Last night, John Murphy a member the campaign to stop the drift-netting of salmon at sea, and the manager of the Waterville Fisheries Development Co-operative which aims to promote angling in south Kerry, congratulated the board.

However, most anglers believed the discovery was “the tip of the iceberg”, Mr Murphy said.