Spinfish nes, Save our salmon

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SAVE OUR SALMON!

The Salmon and Trout Association petition calls on the Scottish Government to act without delay to stop the destruction of West Coast salmon and sea trout fisheries as a result of sea lice infestations.

Salmon and sea trout in the West Highlands are an endangered species and the Scottish Government continues to sit on it's hands, it is time we anglers did something about it.

The Salmon and Trout Association has launched a petition, which has already collected 11,000 signatures, demanding that the Scottish government takes definitive action to deal with the sea lice infestations around salmon farms that have for years been destroying or West Coast stocks of wild salmon and sea trout.

'Paul Knight, Executive Director of S&TA, said: “We fully recognise that salmon farming in Scotland makes a significant contribution to the Scottish economy. However this industry is also threatening the very survival of our wild salmon and sea trout in the west Highlands and Islands. It is the source of huge sea lice infestations that are literally eating our wild fish alive. It is fundamentally inequitable that the interests of the fish farm industry should be permitted to ride roughshod over one of the country’s greatest natural assets”.

Mr Knight continued: “Over the last decade there has been a wealth of research in both western Scotland, some of it conducted by Scottish Government scientists, and in other salmon farming areas overseas which has shown conclusively the devastating damage that sea lice emanating from the farms cause to runs of migrating wild salmon and sea trout. The only practical solution is to move the farms away from the most important estuaries”.

George Holdsworth, Scottish Policy Officer for S&TA, added: “There is a great deal of anger at the continuing intransigence of the Scottish Government to address this problem. This petition represents an opportunity for individuals to express their concerns and to show that their views are shared by very many thousands of others. We aim to use the petition as a vehicle to force Scottish Government to face up finally to its responsibilities and take appropriate action to ensure that salmon farming becomes, at long last, environmentally sustainable. We urge everyone who shares our concern to sign this important petition. It is online at http://www.salmontrout.
org/save_petition.asp ”.

The petition will run until early 2010 and be delivered to the Scottish Parliament in the spring. Signatures are being collected on the ground at numerous events and
retail premises as well as online at http://www.salmon-trout.org/save_petition.asp '

Spinfish heartily supports this initiative, enough time and money has been spent investigating the link between fish farming, sea lice infestations and salmon and sea trout mortality. Give a kid a bag of sweeties and they could come to the conclusion that our fish are being wiped out because government controls on how fish farms operate are inadequate.

It is time that the interests of anglers and those many people dependent on angling tourism for there income are given full and proper consideration with regard to how fish farms operate. It is iniquitous that fish farming is allowed to minimise costs while angling interests in entire communities pay the price.

Let's get the fish farms out of our sea lochs and river estuaries, out of our fresh water lochs. If fish farms need breeding grounds for their fish let them bear the cost of building stank lochs where they can breed their fish without any danger of escape. Let them bear the cost of building open water fish cages away from the confines of the sea lochs and estuaries they presently use.

The government by doing too little too late, the Crown by continuing to issue licences are culpable in the demise of our enviable fisheries like the once great Loch Maree.

Sign the petition, be counted and let the government see that the numbers are there marshalled and ready to show the strength of the fishing fraternity and that their sorry seats could be at risk should the biggest participant sport achieve a momentum.

Fish farming is a significant contributor to the Scottish economy but is a Johnny Come Lately compared with angling which has been the sport of the common man since humans first walked on this planet. Angling in all of it's forms contributes more to the Scottish economy than fish farming and government should recognise that fact. A six figure number of signatures on the petition should rattle a few political jowls.

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