Tuesday, August 10, 2004

For immediate release

St. Andrews……The commercial fishery that targets North American wild Atlantic salmon on their feeding grounds off West Greenland won’t take place this August and that’s great news for future runs of this remarkable species. “In fact,” says Bill Taylor, President of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, “the Greenland fishery has not operated for two years now and this has stopped the salmon’s precipitous decline. Hopefully, the agreement is also providing momentum for restoring to health salmon runs to hundreds of our rivers, such as the Miramichi in New Brunswick, the Grand Cascapedia in Quebec, the Humber in Newfoundland, the Margaree in Nova Scotia, the Penobscot in Maine, and the Connecticut in southern New England.”

The Greenland Conservation Agreement that suspended salmon fishing was first signed in 2002, continued into 2003 and was successfully extended into 2004. This agreement is particularly beneficial to North America. Between 75% and 90% of the salmon harvested at Greenland are salmon that have migrated to feeding grounds in Greenland waters from Canadian and United States rivers. The partners that negotiated and funded the agreement with KNAPK (Greenland’s commercial fishermen’s organization) are the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (Iceland), the U.S. Departments of the Interior and State, the U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF). The partners have been developing alternative economic development programs to sustain the fishermen in exchange for their not fishing Atlantic salmon commercially.

In the spring, scientists at the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) predicted a decline in the two-sea-winter (2SW) salmon that return to North American rivers this year. “As the runs progress though,” continues Mr. Taylor, “we are seeing that the 2SW salmon are generally holding their own. As well, more grilse (one sea-winter salmon) and some very large salmon that have made their migrations from home to ocean feeding grounds and back three, four and even more times are returning in greater numbers than predicted.”

“If I’m allowed a layman’s opinion as to why runs seem to be better than ICES predicted,” concludes Mr. Taylor, “I would credit our Conservation Agreement to suspend the Greenland commercial fishery, the positive impact of more anglers practicing live release of both salmon and grilse, and the effects of the many river restoration projects undertaken by the local river associations affiliated with ASF. It’s looking like this is going to be a very good year for our Atlantic salmon runs and the prospects for the future are even better.”

The Atlantic Salmon Federation is an international, non-profit organization that promotes the conservation and wise management of the wild Atlantic salmon and its environment. ASF has a network of seven regional councils (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Maine and New England) which have a membership of more than 150 river associations and 40,000 volunteers. The regional councils cover the freshwater range of the Atlantic salmon in Canada and the United States.

Contact:

Sue Scott

Vice President - Communications

506 529-1027 or 506 529-4581

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