Canney appeals to anglers to become citizen scientists as part of the National Salmon Scale Project

Canney appeals to anglers to become citizen scientists as part of the National Salmon Scale Project

Salmon scales reveal mysterious life of salmon

Wednesday, 3rd of April 2019: Anglers who are willing to become citizen scientists are needed for a new National Salmon Scale Project says Sean Canney TD, Minister with responsibility for the Inland Fisheries sector.

Minister Canney said: “As we celebrate International Year of the Salmon, this project will help researchers understand the challenges which salmon are facing today. The project, which has been initiated by Inland Fisheries Ireland aims to collect vital information through scales taken from salmon and sea trout which are caught in Irish rivers and lakes and will contribute to international efforts to conserve wild salmon”.

Angler Shane O'Reilly supporting the National Salmon Scale Project

Fish scales record the life history of a salmon and one scale can reveal a lot about the lifestyle and behaviour of the fish. Scales can tell scientists what age the fish is, how many winters it spent at sea, how many times it spawned, how slow or fast it grew, what it ate and how long it spent in the river before it went out to sea.

Scales can also reveal the general feeding area where the salmon travelled to in the ocean, whether it went to the Faroe Islands, the Norwegian Sea or all the way to West Greenland. Scales help scientists to understand the biology and ecology of Irish salmon and sea trout.

As part of the project, anglers are asked to take a scale sample from a salmon or sea trout by gently scraping and removing approximately 20 fish scales using a clean knife. Anglers are then requested to post their samples to Inland Fisheries Ireland using the sample envelopes which will be made available to them. Scales can be removed from both harvested and catch and release fish. Sampling of fish for release should be handled carefully and fish should be only briefly removed from the water with every effort made to avoid injury or stress while weight should be estimated.

Information from salmon scales is used in setting conservation limits for Irish rivers. Conservation limits for each river are set based on the proportion of salmon who have spent one winter at sea and those that have spent multiple winters at sea. The ‘conservation limit’ for a river represents the number of spawning salmon required to produce the next generation of salmon and this information helps inform angling regulations and management. Information from scales on multi sea winter salmon entering rivers in spring is also important for managing individual river stocks.

Gus O’Reilly (age 6), Shane O’Reilly (age 9) and Penny O’Reilly (age 12) from Navan, County Meath with Dr Paddy Gargan, Senior Research Officer and Co-Ordinator of the National Salmon Scale Project at Inland Fisheries Ireland and Dr Cathal Gallagher, Head of Research and Development at Inland Fisheries Ireland.

Dr Paddy Gargan, Senior Research Officer at Inland Fisheries Ireland said: “It is important to have anglers collecting scales as they can provide broad coverage across Ireland and collect scales throughout the fishing season. A scale resource which includes many different river systems in Ireland over several years is a great asset from a research perspective as it allows us to examine the factors affecting salmon survival at sea. We can compare how factors, such as climate change, are impacting survival by analysing today’s salmon scales alongside those from many decades ago.”

All scales collected through the National Salmon Scale Project will be added to the National Salmon Scale Archive which is managed by Inland Fisheries Ireland. The archive, which consists of a dedicated storage facility and associated database, currently holds 19,300 scale samples from a total of 38 rivers representing 152 sampling years. The National Salmon Scale Project aims to increase the scale resource available to scientists for ongoing and future research.

Dr Cathal Gallagher, Head of Research and Development at Inland Fisheries Ireland said: “Ultimately the National Salmon Scale Project will help inform future salmon management policies and activities. It is fitting therefore that we are launching this campaign during International Year of the Salmon which aims to raise awareness of what humans can do to ensure salmon and their habitats are conserved and restored against a backdrop of several environmental pressures. This project offers anglers a very tangible and practical way of playing an active role in salmon conservation.”

For more information on the National Salmon Scale Project, including how to take a sample safely and to request sample envelopes, visit www.fisheriesireland.ie/salmonscales. To find out more about International Year of the Salmon visit www.yearofthesalmon.org or www.fisheriesireland.ie/iys.

ENDS

Notes to Editor

About Salmon in Ireland

Adult salmon are steel-blue and silver in colour when they are fresh from the sea.
They are native to the river basins of Europe and eastern North America that drain into the North Atlantic Ocean.
Salmon are widespread in Ireland and are found in river systems throughout the country.
Adult salmon spend their life at sea but migrate back up rivers to spawn, where juveniles live until they are large enough to migrate to sea.
Salmon have a remarkable homing instinct: they migrate from Ireland to their feeding grounds as far away as the Norwegian Sea and the coast of Greenland and back to the stream in which they were first born.
Salmon that reach maturity after one year at sea are called grilse, and these fish generally return to rivers in summer months. Bigger, older fish returning in spring after multiple winters at sea are called springers, and they tend to return earlier in the year. Many large Irish rivers also get a run of summer salmon, multi sea winter fish that return in summer and early autumn.

About Scale Analysis

Inland Fisheries Ireland’s researchers utilise stable isotope analysis from scales to help determine what the fish ate during its lifetime.
Differences in the marine feeding of Atlantic salmon can be examined using scale analyses of stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen isotope differences among salmon populations which may result from utilisation of different prey organisms.
Using the carbon isotope composition of scales, scientists can also determine the general feeding area where the salmon travelled to in the ocean.

For media information:

Órla Sheils
Communications Manager
T: 01 8842673 / 087 099 5038
E: orla.sheils@fisheriesireland.ie

About Inland Fisheries Ireland

Inland Fisheries Ireland is a statutory body operating under the aegis of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (DCCAE) and was established under the Fisheries Act on 1st July 2010. Its principal function is the protection and conservation of the inland fisheries resource. Inland Fisheries Ireland promotes supports, facilitates and advises the Minister on the conservation, protection, management, development and improvement of inland fisheries, including sea angling. Inland Fisheries Ireland also develops policy and national strategies relating to inland fisheries and sea angling and advises the Minister on same.