Since becoming aware of the escape of farmed salmon in Killary Harbour, Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) has been monitoring for escaped farmed salmon and has alerted anglers and fishery owners throughout the region to be vigilant for the potential presence of farmed fish in rivers. IFI has also requested that all encounters with potential farmed salmon be reported.
In catch-and-release designated fisheries where suspected farmed fish have been reported to be present, IFI allocated authorised officers to patrol and liaise with anglers to enable any samples to be retained. However, verification of farmed salmon based only on visual inspection of the exterior of the fish can in some instances prove very difficult and full verification of the farm origin of a fish is only possible through more detailed investigation (scale reading, internal dissection, genetic analyses of tissue samples). This is due in large part to farmed salmon not having any clear visual external markers that distinguish them from wild salmon with a high degree of certainty.
If the harvest and retention of “suspected” farm salmon in catch-and-release fisheries was permitted, it would increase the likelihood that wild salmon may be culled in error and potentially undermines the protection and conservation of wild salmon, particularly on those catch-and-release fisheries which are not currently exceeding their conservation limits.
