Salmon: Increasing Numbers

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:30 pm on 8 September 2020.

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Photo of Edwin Poots Edwin Poots DUP 2:30, 8 September 2020

The Department has been seeking to stop net fishing for many years, and most of that is now done away with. The people who put the nets at the mouths of our rivers no longer do that, and that is positive because it allows more salmon to get back into our rivers. It is a hugely complex issue. Changes in water temperatures, climate change and all of that have been blamed for a lot of the issues around the lack of salmon. Our waterways in general are a lot cleaner than they were 20 years ago, and we need to continue to work on that to ensure that we have clean water systems, the appropriate spawning grounds and no netting and that we do the appropriate things to ensure that we reduce carbon emissions across Northern Ireland.