Saturday, November 13, 2004

ASF Press Release

New York, NY… In recognition of excellence in international leadership, the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) today announced that Royall (Mike) Victor III of Palm Beach, FL is the recipient of the 2004 Lee Wulff Conservation Award.

“Mike Victor, a long-time conservationist, has devoted four decades to conserving wild Atlantic salmon,” said Donal C. O’Brien, Chairman of ASF (U.S.). “He has many conservation credits, including supporting ASF's efforts to close high seas and other interceptory fisheries that targeted threatened wild Atlantic salmon populations. At the local level, one of his accomplishments that is especially noteworthy is Mike’s work to save Quebec’s Grand Cascapédia River salmon. He raised the visibility of the problem of clear-cutting along this river, which brought about an agreement to make forestry practices more sustainable and helped create employment for Native people.”

Mike Victor, a true “live release leader” shares this deep commitment with Lee Wulff, who pioneered live release as a way to conserve wild Atlantic salmon. At Mike’s lodge, New Dereen on the Grand Cascapédia, 100% of the salmon angled are returned to the water alive. Because of his leadership, live release is now an accepted conservation measure on this river and its live release rate overall climbed from 26% in 1998 to 85% in 2004. Guides and anglers witnessed the return of many large repeat spawning salmon this season, some weighing as much as 50 pounds.

Mr. Victor was an original ASF U.S. Board member and, for many years, was responsible for ASF’s fundraising dinner in New York. He served as Chair of the U.S.

Executive and Finance committees and is a member of ASF’s Development, Executive, Finance and Audit, Awards, and Nominating Committees. As a member of ASF's Regional Affairs Committee, he helps steer ASF's policy development. Mr. Victor has served and continues to serve on many other volunteer and corporate boards. Before retiring in 1997, he had been a Managing Director and Senior Vice President with The Chase Manhattan Bank for 34 years.

ASF presents the Lee Wulff Conservation Award for wild Atlantic salmon conservation annually to an individual who has made outstanding, long-term contributions to conserve threatened wild Atlantic salmon. Lee Wulff, in whose memory the Conservation Award is given, was a world-renown salmon angler, artist, author, and filmmaker, who dedicated six decades of his life to conserving wild Atlantic salmon.

A man of vision, Mr. Wulff advocated and began teaching the techniques to safely release angled salmon in 1933. He convinced the government of Newfoundland to establish a daily catch limit for salmon in 1939 and produced a film on Greenland’s commercial fishery that proved the need to control Atlantic salmon exploitation in the late 1960s. A long-time ASF Director and Vice President, Lee Wulff continued his salmon conservation efforts up until his death in 1991 at the age of 86.

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) that 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.

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