Norway's Atlantic Salmon Runs Collapse To Record Lows; 33 Rivers Closed To Fishing

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Scientists have been warning of the rapidly declining North Atlantic salmon population for years, which in Norway has shrunk from more than a million in the early 1980s to about 500,000, a drop largely linked to the climate crisis. Now, the latest figures show Atlantic salmon stocks are at a historic low. Experts say the species is at imminent threat from salmon farming, which has led to escapes (including of sick fish), a dramatic rise in sea lice, and could result in wild salmon being replaced entirely by a hybrid species.

Torbjørn Forseth, a salmon researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (Nina) and the head of the Norwegian scientific advisory committee for Atlantic salmon management, says wild Norwegian salmon could become extinct. “We are replacing wild salmon with escaped farm salmon,” he says. “That’s in the long term a major threat because then you lose all these local adaptations.” Each of Norway’s 450 salmon rivers has its own salmon which have adapted to the specific conditions of the local environment. “If that is replaced with a hybrid between wild and farmed salmon then you are losing something very, very important.”

While the broader factors linked to the climate crisis are not something that Norway can quickly do something about, the human-made impact of fish farming is something that could be swiftly acted upon, says Forseth. He is calling for a completely different approach to fish-farm management, separating farmed and wild fish populations. Open-net farming at sea has, he believes, reached its “biological limit”. This year’s salmon collapse – from the south-east of Norway near the border with Sweden to just north of Trondheim – is unlike anything he has ever seen in his 25 years of studying Atlantic salmon. “I’m worried for the future,” he says.

Salmon in Norway dates back thousands of years, but the sport of fly-fishing as it is known today was introduced by the English in the 1820s. The sudden closure of 33 rivers, including the Gaula, just three weeks into the salmon fishing season in June was a shock to many. But Bogen says she’s not surprised. “Something happened in 2023, but the decline has been obvious for years and years and all the research is showing all the same trends,” she says. “It’s such a decline and its happening very fast.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/29/like-doomsday-why-have-salmon-deserted-norway-rivers-and-will-they-ever-return