Greed and the wilful destruction of fishing as we know it

I took a book, though it is hard to read in summer. Mind you, it is hard to do much at all in the poor semblance of summer we have so far enjoyed. Fishermen are busy at salmon – I had thought to join them, but for now there remains no appetite.
It is hard to put a finger on the reasons. One certainty, is that the fish are no longer there in sufficient quantity to make the venture worthwhile. Nobody will thank us for what we have done. For now we have as much farmed salmon as we could possibly eat, packed in plastic on supermarket shelves at the cost of their wild counterparts. We have no need of the wild, or of wildness, and are content to sit back to watch it disappear.
It is hard to stand and cast into an almost empty river, especially in the knowledge that my catch would leave it more empty still. I have seen, on the occasions I stopped by, successful fishers swinging salmon from their fists, held by the tail or with fingers thrust through gills.
There remains within me a little of that old feeling, that ‘Brother of the Angle’ type of thing, when we would celebrate with a drink, congratulating friends who found their fish and commiserating with those who did not.
Now to see a salmon dead on the bank seems an affront. It should not be this way.
Fifty years ago the number of salmon returning to Irish rivers was estimated to be in the region of two million per year. That number has dropped by some 90 per cent. Many waters have lost their runs of migratory fish altogether.
Take the Muingnabo as an example. Only a few yards wide throughout its length, this delightful little stream was once a prolific salmon fishery with a decent run of late season fish. Now those wanting to spend a day there, in as remote a place as can be found in the entire country, are told the river is closed. ‘Why so?’ We ask.
‘There are no fish any more.’ is the sad reply.
We want to know more. ‘What is being done about it?’
Nor is it here alone that the King of Fishes has run into trouble. In Scotland, where the runs of fish were once far greater than we ever knew in this country, more and more rivers no longer have a sustainable spawning population. It is unthinkable, yet it is happening before our very eyes.
Something needs to be done. But what?
Anyway, aren’t there enough scientists and qualified ecologists already working on the problem? Surely they will find a workable solution to this and to our other environmental ills.
One problem, as I see it, is that unless firm scientific evidence supports a certain course of action then that prospective remedy will be ignored. It takes years to figure things out, of course. There is no time.
Now, just look at the huge number of small streams that run into the ocean around the coast of Mayo alone. Quite probably, a great many of these once supported a vibrant population of migratory fish. Then we moved in to make them redundant, deepening and straightening and draining the surrounding land, thus making them uninhabitable for the demanding Atlantic salmon. We stripped the banks of trees, exposing shallow water to direct sunlight, which warms it through and prevents the absorption of oxygen. And we threw our waste within.
Now we need to do the reverse. Plant riparian zones with trees, not with any old trees, but with willow, birch and alder. Allow these room to grow. Let their roots enrich the soil, their foliage filter sunlight.
Fill the streams with gravel. We dug it out in error, and in recognising our error we should repair the damage we have done.
And then we need our fishes. We need salmon hatcheries raising vast quantities of fry with which to stock our newly mended streams and give back the life we so callously stripped.
We plant salmon eggs and stock juvenile fish, doing so this year and the next, repeating the exercise over and again until we get it right. Our laboratories must be out there, in the woods and the wilds. Start small, experiment, expand, work and reach out, become world leaders in habitat restoration. It would be far better things were put right by our own hand.
But we will not do it. Why? Because there is no immediate return. We turned life’s own existence into cash, which we keep shovelling into our pockets with one hand far, far shorter than the other.
The book it is, then. The dreams of another must suffice.