Let’s nurture the salmon – not destroy it

I REFER to the two astonishing and disturbing letters (May 29) written by Aidan Barry of the South Western Fisheries Board and John O’Donoghue TD concerning the proposed reintroduction of commercial fishing in Castlemaine Harbour, Co Kerry.

Every intelligent conservationist and “dog on the street” knows that salmon stocks throughout the entire North Atlantic are at all-time low levels.

The North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Council is carrying out extensive sea research under the chairmanship of Dr Ken Whelan of our own Marine Institute to establish why.

Reintroduction of commercial net fishing, no matter how controlled or restricted, sends out a shocking message to all our sister countries – in North America, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Russia, Scotland and England – that we are even contemplating this retrograde measure.

Mr Barry refers to the social division hindering the management of our fast vanishing resource.

This is arrant nonsense. The interests of commercial fisherman and rod anglers are not the issue. Of paramount importance here is the survival of a species, the wild Atlantic Salmon, and “social divisions” will never alter this fact.

Mr Barry talks about utilising our rivers enjoying a “surplus”. Does this mean every salmon river with a “surplus” in the North Atlantic should open its estuarine waters for commercial netting of salmon?

In Mr Barry’s pilot scheme, if fish are caught that are destined for closed and depleted east coast and Welsh rivers will he ensure these fish are returned unharmed on their way to the Slaney or the Boyne?

Former minister John O’Donoghue’s letter is hardly worthy of comment, but was no doubt prompted by a squalid attempt to hang on to a few rapidly evaporating coastal votes in south Kerry. Wild Atlantic salmon and Fianna Fáil stocks are sadly both at all-time lows. I would suggest that Mr O’Donoghue talks to his former colleague Noel Dempsey who had the vision and courage to ban all drift netting at sea in 2006/07 – a move that was internationally applauded across the North Atlantic.

I fully support your excellent editorial (May 20). This is a fundamentally wrong, ill-considered ministerial decision. We still enjoy a wonderful (but threatened) and much envied resource. Let’s nurture it – not destroy it.

Edward Hallinan

South Mall

Cork