Opinion
Recirculating ideas in land based farming
VERY early in my career, in the face of the usual barrage of criticism from the wild salmonid sector, someone started to talk about growing salmon on land. I was lucky then, as now, to have good friends in the industry to discuss ideas and debate the best ways forward. Although some of them thought…
Read MoreSalmon farms are the victim of wild claims and myths
PANORAMA used to be the ‘window on the world’, where Richard Dimbleby, the father of current affairs television, established the standards of BBC excellence. What would he have made of Monday night’s ‘expose’ on salmon farming in Scotland, a programme that came up with a title and then set out to prove its premise without…
Read MoreOPINION: Don\’t blame farms for nationwide decline
THE first proper spring salmon I ever saw was pulled from the icy waters of the Tay on a bitter March day 20 years ago. There was snow in the air, the water was barely above freezing – it actually felt lower than that even through a pair of neoprene waders – and the sky…
Read MoreOPINION: Don\’t blame farms for nationwide decline
THE first proper spring salmon I ever saw was pulled from the icy waters of the Tay on a bitter March day 20 years ago. There was snow in the air, the water was barely above freezing – it actually felt lower than that even through a pair of neoprene waders – and the sky…
Read MoreOPINION: Success in the salmon farming zone
PARTICIPANTS at the recent Fisheries Management Scotland conference were given a copy of the latest annual review, which includes reports from all the main salmon and sea trout rivers. The report from the Tweed begins: ‘Salmon catches dropped for a fourth consecutive year with the spring catch half that of 2017.’ The total rod catch…
Read MoreOPINION: No decision is the worst decision with Brexit
I KNOW, I can’t apologise enough for writing about Brexit, but I also can’t bear the utter incompetence of what is going on. It has the mesmeric attraction of a car crash in extremely slow motion, with all of the destruction, gore and misery displayed for public view. The problem is the breath-taking ineptitude of…
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