A Plague of MSG



Harbour seals in Eyemouth Harbour


An additive to Chinese food, MSG comes with a health warning, but off course this article is not about that MSG it’s about something much more toxic, to angling - Mergansers, Seals and Goosanders (Footnote 1). The number of toxic MSGs has reached a level where they are making a massive impact on the salmonid population and it looks like the “powers that be” think this is acceptable. Acceptable that these precious fish, in which so much conservation effort has been invested, should be smeared across the shores and fields of our nation as bird and seal crap.

It is time anglers got militant!

If foxes were eating all of our chickens, rabbits were eating all the carrots, deer were eating young trees and badgers were passing on TB to cattle they would be culled, in fact deer and badgers are being culled for the reasons stated, based on inadequate research in the case of badgers. Pheasants, grouse, partridges, ducks, woodcock, ptarmagan, snipe and many other species of bird fall to the gun because they have a high value on the plate. So where some vested interests; farmers, estate owners even environmentalist have a concern or livelihood interest, culling or taking for sport / food is accepted, bird or mammal.

Fishing for salmonids (salmon, sea trout and brown trout) fits into the sport / food category perfectly well so why are the legitimate rights of anglers and fishery owners completely swept to one side by government? Well fish aren’t cute nor are they seen by the untrained eye. Non-anglers find the whole idea of fishing to be a bore. Add it all together and it is politically more vote worthy to support the RSPB led bird lobby and pander to the “awe look at the doggy love me eyes of the seal” cadre. I know the power of those eyes, I love dogs, have one starring at me right now, chewy?

The Environment Agency in their report Angling: A Social Search Review described angling as:
”a hidden activity” noting it does not “enjoy a high public or media profile” and that “it sits uncomfortably between different policies and academic concerns”. They also say that as a result angling is poorly funded.  (See Footnote 2 for further comment)
Angling in all of its forms is worth at least £1.5 billion pounds to the UK economy. Country Sports Tourism in Scotland in their report estimated that 630,000 nights worth £86 million were booked in accommodation the largest proportion of which was by trout, sea trout and salmon anglers. They also estimate a further £29 million gross value added.  This ties in with the Scottish Government estimate of £113 million.

£1.5 billion supports a heck of a lot of jobs, 40 - 50,000. If fishing stopped it would be like shutting down a major industry. Devastating in already hard hit rural communities.

Government needs to recognise the quiet but powerful relevance of angling and take action to protect and promote the sport, and please don’t take this as an opportunity to regulate fishing in favour of the anti- blood sport lobby, regulate for anglers.

Anglers continue to pay for their fishing while they continue to return the bulk of their fish. Many angling organisations work night and day to halt poaching, to improve the aquatic environment for invertebrate life upon which the fish feed and to the benefit of other wildlife. They do this and many more acts of conservation and improvement only to see sea lice infestations devastate salmon and sea trout populations, watch seals devour salmon in low water conditions when salmon cannot enter river systems, observe flocks of mergansers and goosanders devour immature salmonids while cormorants (see Footnote 3) devour the mature fish. They see industrial waste dumped onto rivers, slurry from the new intensive commercial farms sprayed on fields adjacent to rivers (the famed Towy sea trout fishery is a shade of it’s past self for this reason). They see water abstraction for hydro schemes and for drinking water reduce rivers to stony deserts while poorly treated sewage is pumped in to rivers radically affecting the water quality and invertebrate life while destroying spawning grounds (see the upper Spey and Garry for examples).

Angling has been and will always be an boon to those who participate; joy, exercise, comradeship, positive health benefits are a direct spin off from angling. Government should be promoting angling.

The biggest participant sport on the planet certainly gets a tiny faction of the support that kicking, hitting or passing a ball gets. (£100,000 to compenasate angling bodies over 147 fisheries for losses due to the new river categories in Scotland, £628.27 per fishery).

You see we are dispersed, we are like our fish, unseen, undemonstrative, easily ignored in favour of more vote catching lobbies.

Enough is enough it is time we bang on the doors of the powers that be lobbying the fact that we will not be ignored, that our interests are as important to 10% of the UK population (anglers of all stripes) as those who would protect other wild life at the expense of aquatic life, those who would prohibit angling altogether, those who put profit before concern for fish, who ignore the contribution angling in all of it’s forms makes to many communities throughout our nation.

I am not advocating mass slaughter, I care too much for all wildlife to want to see that. There is room for all creatures on this planet, for now. Clearly though when a species reaches a population where not only their prey but they too are in danger – first the prey is all eaten then the predators starve to death – it is time for us to act for all interested parties.

The RSPB does a wonderful job, tourism brings in much needed income to communities. It is also clear that shooting birds is not going to stop, mergansers and goosanders are ducks. It is also clear that culling is accepted where other animals, farmed or wild are being endangered and sporting, farming, financial or environmental interests are being damaged. We need concerted action now to give wild fishing a future or we will be condemned to chasing bloated rainbows consuming food harvested from the sea that should have been consumed by wild fish, supporting migratory fish, sea birds and other marine life.
It is time to band together, get political, get militant, get results!

We don’t want to see more research grants given to scientist who produce inconclusive results spawning inquiries and reports that require more research, inquiries and reports thus deferring the need for action indefinitely. We want committees to get off their cosy butts and recognise that anglers have a voice, have rights and want support to save the angling environment for posterity.

Please, let me know if you agree or disagree.

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Footnote 1; There are 2 species of Merganser the Goosander (Mergus merganser) and the Red Breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator) the Goosander being more common.
Footnote 2: The report also observes “the UK advocates of angling have made some significant claims about the social and economic importance of angling as part of their promotion of the activity: that it is good for health and wellbeing; that it can help young people develop; that more anglers mean a better environment; that rural communities benefit from a strong angling sector; and that it is a gateway activity to a whole host of other positive outcomes, including volunteering, education, bio-diversity, physical activity, accessing green environments etc.”
Footnote 3: There are 2 species of cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo which is most commonly seen on in land waters. RSPB conservation status green. Over 41,000 over winter in the UK and Phalacrocarax aristotelis (the Shag) which is a marine species, listed in the red zone.There are estimated to be 110,000 over wintering in the UK.
Bother species are large, able to eat fish of up to 1.5lbs doing great damage to fish stocks on inland waters. It is estimated by Scottish Natural Heritage that on Loch Leven in 2001 cormorants consumed between 41,000 and 128,000 brown trout and 830 to 12,500 rainbows (the rainbows having been introduced to boost angling prospects due to the lack of the unique and world famous Loch Leven trout once known as Salmon levensis.) No wonder there and only a small number of boats on this very large loch which once had over 40 boats each with a locally employed boatman.