1.5 million Euro funding won to track the salmon and its journey

The Atlantic Salmon Arc Project (ASAP)

Westcountry Rivers Trust announced the launch of their 1.5 million Euros ‘Atlantic Salmon Arc Project’ (ASAP) at the Eden Project, St Austell, Cornwall on Friday, September 10th, 2004. The project, a partnership of European institutions covering an area of coast stretching from Northern Portugal to Northern Scotland, including Ireland and Wales, is financed by the European Interreg IIIB fund.

The project aims to explain where Atlantic salmon go while at sea and the main causes of their mortality. Currently, Atlantic salmon swim off to sea from their spawning grounds and enter an environmental ‘black hole’ – little is known of where they go thereafter and who is catching them. Atlantic salmon numbers are currently in long-term decline and the species is protected by law, so it is vital we know what happens to them during this phase of their life.

Project partners will genetically map Atlantic salmon populations across the full geographic range of the species. The genetic mapping method is similar to that used in forensic science to identify people and closely related groups from small amounts of tissue. The method, when applied to Atlantic salmon river populations, will produce a unique genetic fingerprint for each river population. All that needs to be collected for the project are some scales from a small number of fish in each river system. This need only be done once, and the fish sampled remain healthy and go on living perfectly normal lives.

“Once this sampling and screening of river populations is complete,” said Dr Dylan Bright, director of science at Westcountry Rivers Trust, “we expect to be able to take a salmon caught at sea, either a young salmon early in its sea migration or an adult caught in net fisheries, and establish, with a high degree of certainty, its river or region of origin.

“The potential thereafter is enormous. The database of screened populations could be used to examine and manage sustainable mixed stock fisheries, to elucidate migration patterns and timings, to provide quality assurance of wild and farmed fish, to regulate poaching and illegal fish sales and to inform stocking and habitat management practices.

“Moreover, the genetic data yielded by the project will be valid for many years. This will form the basis for long-term salmon population studies and management. We will effectively have given every fish from the donor populations a river specific ID code.

“The intention is to extend this project to the rest of the European Atlantic salmon regions and the next phase will comprise a bid to the Interreg Northwest area,” continued Dr Bright.

Director of the Association of Rivers Trusts, Arlin Rickard, who helped develop the project, said, “It is a really exciting breakthrough and I believe the project approach will revolutionise the management of Atlantic salmon. Conservation needs to be planned at a scale relevant to species and the ecosystems that support them, not at a scale relevant to institutions and countries; informed conservation can then be enacted on a more localised scale”.

Both the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, (CEFAS) and the Environment Agency are supporting the project and assisting with data collection. The project is ambitious and novel in its scope, but achievable.

Westcountry Rivers Trust will also celebrate the 10th Anniversary of their inauguration at the launch event on Friday, September 10th.

For further comment about the Atlantic Salmon Arc Project (ASAP), please contact

Dr Dylan Bright BSc PhD CBiol MIBiol - director of science

Westcountry Rivers Trust on 01566 784488

Atlantis Project

Earlier this month, the Trust was delighted to appoint Sue Hewish as the project manager for Atlantis. Atlantis is our most ambitious yet initiative which we hope we will develop into a major project over the coming months. It is anticipated that Atlantis will ultimately become both an educational establishment and home to the European Institute for Water Management, as well as a tourist facility and attraction involving renewable energy, aquariums and a water park. Sue has been appointed to scope out the project and to raise the seed funding necessary to provide a secure platform. After this, we hope that she will be part of the team that goes on to bring this project to life.