Initiative seeks to revive fortunes of iconic species.
An ambitious project is harnessing the power of technology to finally reveal the secret lives of wild Atlantic salmon – backed by £400,000 from the Scottish Government.
Atlantic salmon start their lives in streams and rivers, before migrating to the high seas to grow and return home to spawn, connecting vast ranges of diverse habitats.
Little is known about the migration routes of wild salmon as they leave our rivers, but they travel large distances to feeding grounds in the North Atlantic and Scottish salmon can be found in areas ranging from the seas off West Greenland to the Norwegian sea.
A number of factors, including climate change, has seen the species in serious decline across recent decades and the West Coast Tracking Project is part of a broad range of measures being used to build the resilience of the iconic species.
The multi-year initiative, sees highly trained biologists, some from west coast fisheries trusts, tagging young salmon with miniature acoustic transmitters, each with its own unique signature, as their migration begins.
Strategically placed receivers record the signal from each tag, allowing the progress of individual fish to be tracked if they pass multiple listening sites.
The information will fill key gaps in knowledge of salmon smolts as they migrate from fresh water through the key area of the coastal zone and will be combined with data such as sea lice distribution and ocean currents.
More on:
Posted On: 05/01/2022