Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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249. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the latest statistic for the number of rivers that are meeting their conservation limits for salmon; and the rivers which have changed status in the past five years with regards to their fishing rights. [21851/16]

Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The information requested by the Deputy is set out in the following tables which provide the latest statistics for the number of rivers which are meeting their conservation limits for salmon and the rivers which have changed status in the past five years. The Wild Salmon and Sea Trout Tagging Scheme Regulations are revised on an annual basis following management advice from Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) based on the scientific advice of the Independent Standing Scientific Committee (SSC) for the management of the wild salmon fishery in each year.

The Independent Standing Scientific Committee on Salmon comprises scientists from IFI, an Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the Marine Institute, the Loughs Agency, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI-Northern Ireland) other State bodies and third level institutions.

The scientific committee assesses and offers advice on the predicted stocks status in all of Ireland’s over 147 salmon rivers each year against that rivers conservation limit using the most recent five years of available data from the catchment. The conservation limit is the number of adult salmon required on each river to maintain a healthy population - the stock level that maximises the long-term average surplus.

The individual river management strategy is based on the fact that each of Ireland’s 147 salmon rivers has its own unique stock of salmon which migrates to sea as juveniles and returns to the same river in adulthood to spawn and create the next generation of fish exclusive to that river.

Since 2007, the harvest of salmon, by commercial and recreational (angling) means, has been restricted to those stocks of rivers that are meeting their conservation limits.

2016