63 Appendices lo Thirty-eighth Annual Report 



APPENDIX III. 

 SALMON FISHERIES. 



MK. CALDERWOOD'S REPORT. 



Fishery Board for Scotland, 

 ^;;/77l920. 



I have the honour to submit my annual report on the Salmon Fisheries 

 of Scotland, being for the year 1919. 



It is now possible to use as a standard of comparison a series of five 

 quinquennial averages, prepared from the information voluntarily suppHed 

 by the railways and steamship companies as to the weight of salmon 

 carried to maiket annually. . The alarming fall of the curve, which is here 

 shown, as representing those 25 years, is sufficiently ^evident. The last 

 average figure is 1651 tons, the lowest ever recorded. The fluctuations 

 from year to year are shown in the larger chart of curves which accom- 

 panies the Board's Report (p. xx.). The curve of averages, while being 

 an epitome of the larger curves, brings out in clear view the really serious 

 condition of this important branch of the fisheries. 



It happens that both grilse and s^a trout were more numerous last 

 season, and that the catch for the market, with a weight of 1802 tons, 

 therefore shows a rise from the depressing figure already referred to, but 

 there is no reason to suppose that one can build much hope for the future 

 on this rise, since no changes of any moment have supervened in the well- 

 defined causes which make for the decline of the salmon. Good years are 

 not so good as formerly, and bad years are worse. I would respectfully 

 urge that the grave situation revealed be given the serious attention it 

 deserves. 



It is true that in the case of certain districts an improvement is taking 

 place at the present time, chiefly through the reduction of netting in narrow 

 waters and estuaries in cases where pollution is not much in evidence. 

 In other cases, however, we have serious and growing jiollutions, abstrac- 

 tion of water, and the presence of natural or aitificial obstructions. The 

 clear issue is, that in the country as a whole, the breeding of salmon and 

 sea trout in our rivers is insufficient to meet the drain u^^on the stock, 

 and that our commercial fishings are inevitably suffering. 



The process of decay is so slow that the position is not realised by those 

 who may not have reflected upon the former abundance of salmon. Prices 

 have improved, so that a smaller catch may still yield good financial 

 results — at time of witing, the price of salmon in Aberdeen market has 

 reached 5s. lOd. per lb. — but the supply of a valuable fish food to the 

 market is far short of what it might be. From recent reports concerning 

 the important salmon fisheries of the Eraser 'River in British Columbia, 

 where the supply was at one time regarded as inexhaustible, it is clear 

 that even there those in charge of the fisheries have become seriously 



