Salmon tracking project focuses on north-east rivers
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A project which tracks salmon in the River Deveron and others in the north-east has entered its second year.
It is spearheaded by the Atlantic Salmon Trust as part of the Missing Salmon Alliance.
The project rivers trace the curve of the Moray Firth, from the Shin and Oykel in the Kyle of Sutherland to the Deveron, encompassing the Conon, Spey, Ness and Findhorn.
Its most recent stage saw the last of 100 smolts tagged on the Spey as part of the wide-ranging tracking scheme.
River boards and trusts on each of the rivers are engaged in tagging smolts, the young salmon ready to set off on their journey along the river courses and into the Moray Firth and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
Teams of river board staff and volunteers deployed equipment into the water earlier this month; including rotary screw traps to temporarily catch the fish and acoustic receivers, which collect signals from the tagged smolts on their journey out to sea.
This is the second year of the Moray Firth Tracking Project, which saw 100 smolts tagged on the Spey in 2019.
Spey Fishery senior biologist, Brian Shaw, is involved on a daily basis with the project, marshalling a team of staff and volunteers to make sure the information gathered is the best it can be.
He said: “The smolt migration process is an important stage of a salmon’s life cycle. New tracking technology now allows us to monitor this part of the salmon’s journey from fresh to salt water.
"This gives us a valuable insight into potential bottlenecks along the migration route and the speed at which smolts navigate downstream.
“One of our key smolt trapping areas is on the River Avon – the Spey’s largest tributary. Here, salmon can spawn at an altitude of 600 metres – smolts from here have the steepest descent of any river in the UK.”
Even rivers are the sum of their parts, and one of the fishing beats on the Spey is at The Macallan Estate, a hospitality destination and home to every bottle of The Macallan’s single-malt whisky since 1824.
The river running through the 485-acre estate is presided over by ghillie Robert Mitchell, whose enthusiasm for the river and the fish that it is renowned for is hard to beat.
Mr Mitchell's favourite time of year is "May on the Spey" when nature comes alive on the river.
He said: “I’ve always been fascinated by salmon, ever since I caught my first fish with a worm on the River Lossie. I knew I wanted to work as close to the river and these magnificent fish as possible and, as a ghillie, I get the excitement of watching them swimming by me up the river to spawn.
“Here at The Macallan Estate, we take our role as guardians of our very own stretch of the legendary River Spey seriously, and we are working with the Atlantic Salmon Trust to find out what’s happening to the salmon on their journey to the ocean.
"Our partnership is based on a shared spirit of sustainability and community as together we care for the extraordinary river and its natural surroundings, and we look forward to seeing the results and gaining a better understanding of the work we can do to preserve these fish as they journey through our estate.”
The Atlantic Salmon Trust exists solely for the protection of wild salmon and sea trout. Its aim is to create a positive future for these threatened species; using scientific research to understand their decline and put evidence-based solutions into practice to better protect them.
