Scottish fishers warn that wild salmon stocks are in critical condition.

Such a statement came after a record low catch of wild salmon. Official Scottish government data showed that just over 37,000 wild salmon were caught in 2018, which is the lowest since catching in 1952, accounting for only 67% of the average over the past five years.

Almost all salmon caught by fishermen in Scotland returns to the water. River water authorities and conservationists blame salmon for a variety of factors, including climate change leading to higher sea temperatures and changes in food supplies, dams and weirs in river systems that block fish migration routes and commercial growing salmon.

Fishing is an important source of income in parts of rural Scotland, and critics of fish farming claim that salmon farms attract flocks of sea lice, parasites that feed on live fish and attack nearby schools of wild salmon.

Rosanna Cunningham, the Scottish Minister for the Environment, said she was alarmed by the numbers. “The reduction in wild salmon numbers is a serious concern, and I am determined to secure the future of this important species,” the minister said.