Download Richard Gustar Our ref: PS67/03 Scottish Executive Environment

Richard Gustar
Our ref: PS67/03
Scottish Executive Environment & Rural Affairs Department
Freshwater Fisheries, Aquaculture & Marine Environment
Room 408A
Pentland House
47 Robb’s Loan
EDINBURGH
EH14 1TY
May 2003
AMENDMENT TO THE SALMON (FISH PASSES AND SCREENS) (SCOTLAND)
REGULATIONS 1994
Thank you for inviting SNH to comment on the above consultation paper, on the
Executive’s proposed amendment to the Salmon (Fish Passes and Screens)
(Scotland) Regulations 1994. As the paper acknowledges, the Regulations in their
current form contain no explicit requirement to undertake maintenance of fish passes
and screens which have been installed to ensure the safe and uninterrupted
passage of Atlantic salmon.
SNH has considered the Executive’s proposals in the context of our response to the
joint SNH/SE publication ‘Protecting and Promoting Scotland’s Freshwater Fish and
Fisheries: A Review’.
In our response to that consultation SNH expressed a wish to encourage all water
users to accept that, wherever possible, river processes such as water flow, water
level change and sediment movement and accumulation, should be allowed to
operate in ways which are near-natural, or which mimic natural conditions. However
SNH appreciates that many fish passes, dams and lades have been in place for
several decades and that these have been used to support a variety of water-based
industries, such as textile manufacture as well as recreational fisheries. The recent
rise in small scale hydro scheme developments in response to the Government’s
renewable energy programme has meant that the requirement to install fish passes
and screens in Scottish freshwaters has increased significantly over the last decade.
The decline in Scottish Atlantic salmon and sea trout stocks has also meant that
fishery managers have re-examined possibilities for improving access for migratory
fish to remote areas of river catchments in an attempt to increase natural smolt
production. This work invariably involves the construction of fish passes and/or the
physical modification of man-made or natural obstacles such as dams and waterfalls.
However SNH considers that fishery managers should be discouraged from
breaching natural obstructions, such as waterfalls, and is concerned that there is
some evidence that this type of intervention continues to occur.
Clearly, where fish passes and screens have been put in place, it is desirable that
those responsible for their construction should be charged with maintaining the
structure, so as to ensure its continued efficacy in facilitating the free passage of
Atlantic salmon, sea trout and indeed other migratory Annex II species, such as
brook, river and sea lamprey.
SNH welcomes the proposed amendment to the Salmon (Fish Passes and
Screens) (Scotland) Regulations 1994 and sees this as a positive step in
ensuring the continued efficacy of new and existing fish passes for migratory
salmonids.
Andy Dorin
Deputy Head of Secretariat