WildFish tells UK Governments: act now to protect endangered wild Atlantic salmon

WildFish is calling on the UK government and devolved administrations to review their conservation policies for metapopulations of wild Atlantic salmon – on the IUCN Red List of endangered species.

The call comes as a new Environment Agency report [1] suggests that legal protection applies to a wider network of rivers than previously thought. The research shows that all rivers and streams that contain salmon “metapopulations” [2] (defined as a group of spatially separated populations of the same species which interact at some level) must be reviewed in tandem with those that are currently protected sites under conservation laws. 

The report shows the same population of salmon are living in the rivers Itchen, Test and Meon but only the salmon entering the Itchen are afforded protection because they are a designated species in the Itchen Special Area of Conservation (SAC). This inconsistency exposes salmon from the same population venturing into the Test and Meon to greater risk from higher levels of abstraction, low flows and pollution.

According to existing law, this report makes clear that the Environment Agency is required to treat all three of these rivers in the same way to protect this metapopulation of salmon, something they are currently failing to do. In effect, the Test and Meon are SACs by proxy. 

Nick Measham, CEO at WildFish, said: “This report sets an important precedent for all UK rivers. The research shows that to protect endangered salmon effectively in a SAC, those responsible must also protect neighbouring rivers – where a metapopulation is found – to the same level.

In this example, to protect salmon on the river Itchen, the science shows that you need to protect salmon on the Test and Meon too.” 

WildFish has written to all governments of the UK and Northern Ireland and asked how they plan to ensure their environmental regulators comply with the law. The correspondence requests information about how they will review damaging activities that might be affecting protected metapopulations of wild Atlantic salmon across unprotected as well as protected rivers. It is then the job of the national regulators to make sure that permits and licences are varied or revoked in accordance with the findings to prevent any further damage to endangered populations of wild Atlantic salmon across the country. 

Nick Measham concluded: “Our depleted salmon populations, desperate to escape pollution and dried up rivers, don’t recognise boundaries. There are very likely to be many metapopulations of salmon straddling the rivers of Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland too.

The relevant authorities must act immediately, separately and together, to make the UK’s rivers fit for the King of Fish once again”.

Notes to editors

1. 2 “Upper Itchen estuary water quality monitoring & relevance to Atlantic salmon conservation” by Dom Longley, Analysis & Reporting Team, Environment Agency, dated February 2024.
2. See Guidance from Commission (“Commission notice Guidance document on the strict protection of animal species of Community interest under the Habitats Directive – 2021”), para 148: “A metapopulation consists of a group of spatially separated populations of the same species which interact at some level. The term ‘metapopulation’ was coined by Richard Levins in 1969 to describe a model of population dynamics of insect pests in agricultural fields, but the idea has been most broadly applied to species in naturally or artificially fragmented habitats.