Ireland launches public consultation on wild Atlantic salmon management as returning numbers fall from 2 million to fewer than 200,000

Ireland's Department of Climate, Energy and Environment has launched a new public consultation seeking views from the public and stakeholders on how the country's wild Atlantic salmon should be managed and protected. The consultation, titled "Consultation on a package of more precautionary measures for salmon exploitation," is open until October 30 and aims to inform management measures for the 2027 fishing season.

The decline of wild Atlantic salmon from Irish rivers has been dramatic. According to Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), the national agency, the number of salmon returning from the sea to spawn has fallen from 2 million in the late 1970s to fewer than 200,000 today.

An assessment published by IFI earlier this year attributed the decline in salmon numbers to rising water temperatures caused by climate change, as well as arterial drainage of main river channels for large engineering projects, which has degraded habitat and impeded effective salmon migration, among other issues.

The conservation measures proposed in the consultation include reducing the number of salmon each angler may retain per season from 7 to 3, and imposing stricter angling restrictions on rivers where stocks are not increasing. Other proposed measures include stocking rivers with hatchery fry, which IFI says could play a "limited but important" role in restoring local salmon populations; IFI has also called for gene bank preservation of Irish wild Atlantic salmon to protect the species.

Announcing the consultation, Ireland's Minister for the Marine and Fisheries Timmy Dooley said there is "no single cause" for the decline in wild Atlantic salmon numbers and "no single measure" that can reverse the trend. Dooley added that restricting fishing alone cannot restore salmon populations, and that the longer-term focus must be on creating the conditions to protect and improve habitat and on addressing barriers to fish migration. To this end, the consultation aims to build on existing programmes, such as the government-funded €110 million (about $123.3 million) National Barriers Removal Programme, which removes artificial obstacles such as weirs from rivers.

The conservation group Salmon Watch Ireland has also called on the Irish government to place greater emphasis on the country's aquaculture industry, urging it to require salmon farmers to move from open-sea pen farming to land-based recirculating systems. The group says salmon farmed in open coastal pens can spread parasites and disease to juvenile wild salmon, reducing their survival rates.

The country's recreational anglers have also taken aim at the aquaculture industry. The Federation of Irish Salmon and Sea Trout Anglers (FISSTA) submitted a draft to the consultation calling for an end to all state-approved salmon farming and a halt to new licence issuance. In its draft submission, the organisation said: "Wild Atlantic salmon and their habitat are not being protected by this Government, and the extensive demands of the Irish Farmers' Association have been fully met, overriding the scientific advice that warns us of the consequences."

The consultation closes on October 30, and its input will be used to develop management measures for the 2027 fishing season.