Scotland's Atlantic salmon declared endangered because of government failures, charities claim

It is predicted the population in Scottish rivers will have fallen by 63 per cent between 2010 and 2025.

Wildlife groups claim politicians have done little to protect the steep decline in one of Scotland’s most celebrated species – the wild Atlantic salmon.

British populations of Scotland’s “King of fish”, as the Atlantic salmon is sometimes referred to, have plummeted by up to a half between 2006 and 2020, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It is predicted the population in Scottish rivers will have fallen by 63 per cent between 2010 and 2025.

Pressures on the species include climate change, poor water quality, dams and barriers, exploitation at sea and invasive non-native species such as Pacific pink salmon.

Atlantic salmon female, on its migration up river to spawn pic: Linda Pitkin

Wildlife groups have said politicians have not being doing enough to protect the numbers in UK waters. Dylan Roberts, head of fisheries at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, said: “Successive governments have done little to improve and enforce regulations to protect water quality in our rivers from agricultural and sewage pollution, these are the Atlantic salmon’s nursery streams and also to adequately protect them at sea.

"The demise of the wild Atlantic salmon is a sad reflection of how poorly government prioritise the environment.”

Wildfish, an independent charity campaigning for wild fish in the UK, has called for urgent change to the protection of Atlantic salmon by enforcing more pollution regulations, removing open-net salmon farms from Scottish waters, and addressing in-stream barriers that inhibit their migration.

Nick Measham, the charity’s chief executive, said: “The UK salmon population is in crisis thanks to the failures of our government and its regulators. We should be ashamed that our salmon population is faring worse than globally.”

In response, rural affairs secretary Mairi Gougeon pointed to the Scottish Government’s Wild Salmon Strategy Implementation Plan that sets out actions to tackle pressures on wild salmon.

These include shading rivers from rising temperatures by planting riverside trees, restoring natural river flows by removing dams no longer in use and reducing pressure from fisheries.

Ms Gougeon said: “Collaboration and applying our collective resource, knowledge and expertise is essential in hoping to change the fortunes of this iconic and vital species.”

Atlantic salmon were included on the latest "red list" of threatened species issued by the Swiss-based IUCN at the COP28 UN climate change summit, which has just ended in Dubai. The fish was reclassified from "least concern" to "endangered" in the UK because the "ongoing threats” to the survival of salmon in the wild are "unlikely to cease in the near future".