GWCT Publish 2024 Salmon Monitoring & Fisheries Research Review
The Game & Wildlife Trust have just published their Salmon Monitoring & Fisheries Research Review of 2024.
The Review outlines the work of the Salmon & Trout Research Centre team in continuing the long term work on salmon in the River Frome, in Dorset, and GWCT’s wider aquatic research. Notably, the Frome hosts one of the most detailed datasets available on juvenile and adult wild Atlantic salmon and grayling.
2024 was a mixed bag on many fronts. The year started against the backdrop of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in December 2023 having upgraded the conservation classification of wild Atlantic salmon in the UK from ‘Least Concern’ to ‘Endangered’ on their Red List. This was a result of a 30-50% decline in British populations since 2006 and a 50-80% projected decline between 2010-2025. This news made GWCT Fisheries determined to work even harder to find solutions to their decline.
This worrying trend has been mirrored on the Frome where, in the 1980s the 10-year average number of salmon entering the river annually was estimated to be around 2,500 fish, while now, in 2024 the estimated number of adults that entered the river was just over 400 individual salmon.
Then there was rain. 2024 was one of the wettest years on record, with records for monthly rainfall being broken with alarming regularity. This had a major effect on GWCT’s work programmes.
The River Frome, burst its banks in November 2023 and flows did not recede until May. This meant that GWCT Fisheries were unable to complete a planned salmon redd survey in February and could not operate the smolt trap until mid-April, some five weeks later than planned. On the upside, following a good (for the last 10 years) 2SW adult run in 2022, these larger more productive fish led to good numbers of their offspring in the river in 2023, and a good smolt estimate leaving the river in spring 2024.
Fingers crossed we should see the benefit of this in 2025 and 2026. However, juvenile abundance during fieldwork in August and September 2024 was disappointingly low, showing how variable juvenile salmon numbers can be. Despite the highs and lows, the GWCT team, working in collaboration with the rest of the Missing Salmon Alliance, and other partners, are mining their data at pace to understand why the River Frome, and other salmon populations, are not so abundant as they used to be.
And, more importantly, how we can stem the decline.
Foreword, by Dylan Roberts, GWCT Head of Fisheries, Salmon Monitoring & Fisheries Research Review 2024.
For the full Review, please follow: GWCT Salmon Review 2024