State agencies row over how to protect salmon and trout stocks

GOVERNMENT scientists are bitterly divided over how to protect invaluable salmon and sea trout stocks.

Sea trout could be wiped out in some rivers if Department of Agriculture recommendations to control sea lice are accepted, government scientists have warned.

Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) said the proposals were “disappointing” and failed to address concerns posed to sea trout and salmon stocks by sea lice found near salmon farms. Salmon conservationists supported their position.

Ireland’s salmon farms, amongst other things, have been blamed for the decline in sea trout and salmon stocks as parasites associated with the farms attack the young fish as they migrate from their home rivers to the sea.

The Department of Agriculture oversees fish farming. The IFI operates under the aegis of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

The latest row is linked to a departmental report published last November which identified serious failures in controlling sea lice, but also expressed a desire to eliminate all “unnecessary treatments”.

The IFI said any watering down of treatments could exacerbate the infestation problems and place wild fish stocks under serious threat of extinction in some parts of the country.

It is understood the European Commission has also identified links between fish farming, sea lice and problems posed to wild fish stocks.

The IFI statement said that the departmental response was particularly disappointing in a number of areas, including a number of sites in the West of Ireland being unable to control sea lice during the critical spring period.

It said the Management Cell approach has failed in two areas over the past two years and that the report does not acknowledge the mandatory requirement for treatment of egg-bearing lice.

It also claimed increases in infestation were not isolated incidences, as lice levels breached sea lice protocol levels on 10 of 12 inspections in one particular area.

IFI is not a member of the National Implementation group and its chief executive, Dr Ciaran Byrne, said: “As the statutory agency charged with the protection, conservation and management of sea trout, and as the major rationale for the control of sea lice is to protect the ‘outwardly migrating wild smolts’, IFI’s absence from the NIG is a serious oversight.”

Niall Green of the independent Salmon Watch group said: “Salmon Watch Ireland very much welcomes the forthright statement of IFI. Their statement illuminates the fact that there is a very serious disagreement among state agencies about the appropriate regime for managing and developing salmon farming.”