Wild salmon not in the pink

THE salmon has symbolised many things, from the vanished Picts who left its elegant shape on their carved stones to the angler exhilarated by the flash of a silvery flank above a pool.

Scottish aquaculture has been surrounded by controversy since it began developing in the Sixties. Visual obtrusiveness, environmental pollution, shellfish poisoning and, most recently, lice from salmon farms attacking wild fish are among the complaints being levelled. Now the Scottish Executive is being blamed for failing to monitor and control the industry sufficiently, although the report does concede that some issues are being addressed by the Executive’s aquaculture strategy published earlier this year.

The issue is a volatile one. Environmentalists label salmon farming "a bitter harvest", while others, such as the angler-based Salmon Farm Protest Group, have accused a succession of Scottish administrations of "deceit, deception and downright dishonesty". Fish farmers, for their part, point to a 275 million industry which provides some 6,000 jobs in Scotland

As Robin Harper, the Green MSP, has suggested, there is a crying need for all parties to sit down and discuss these problems articulately, and as a matter of real urgency.