Meeting of the Parliament 11 February 2026 [Draft]
I stand to speak on behalf of the Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar. I thank John Mason for bringing this debate to the chamber and Scottish Environment LINK for giving me the chance to represent that wonderful fish. It would have been wrong for me not to register my interest in the debate, in the sense that I have been involved in managing salmon fisheries for nearly 50 years and have been trying to catch them for about the same amount of time.
Interestingly, Christine Grahame got the species that I was hoping to get. I do not begrudge her that, and I am very grateful to be able to support the salmon. I want to talk about it because it is one of the reasons why many people flock to Scotland. They come here not only to try to catch salmon but to engage in all the activities that Scotland offers, such as partaking in our great food and drink, enjoying our whisky and visiting the other facilities around Scotland. A huge amount of anglers come to our rivers and generate more than £100 million-worth of income for Scotland every year.
When I move into retirement at the end of this session, I hope to spend a lot more of my life involved in trying to help salmon as well as catching them. There are huge threats to the salmon population, such as climate change, whether it involves floods or drought; predation, with seals coming up the river Dee, as we heard today; and aquaculture. I will concentrate on two of those issues this evening.
The first issue that I will address is water. I believe that the Scottish Parliament will have to consider that water is becoming a diminishing resource in Scotland. Allowing abstraction from one river catchment to another, with the effect that rivers dry out, is not a good idea. For example, we are abstracting water from the Spey and putting it into the Tay and the Fort William area to generate electricity. The result is that the rivers are drying up, the stones are heating up and water temperatures are rising in the river. It is not just salmon that are dying because of that but freshwater mussels, too. At the other end of that issue, we see increased flooding over short periods. I have seen parr and smolts washed out of the river, when they should be living in the river.
I have to mention aquaculture. We need to see a huge change in aquaculture. We need pens to be removed from migration routes for salmon. We need to drive down sea lice numbers—I know that the Government is working hard on that. We also need to see a reduction in disease. The aquaculture industry must rise to those challenges.
Like other members, I encourage future MSPs to become involved in the nature champions initiative. They should not be put off if they cannot get the species that they want. They should find one that they can represent, and they should stand up and fight for it, learn all about it and do the best that they can for it in the Parliament.