Wild Salmon & Sea Trout: A Critical Moment

In late November 2025, the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment released draft amendments to the Wild Salmon and Sea Trout Tagging Scheme Regulations, proposing the removal of commercial harvest from the majority of rivers from the 2026 season, while many of those rivers would remain open to anglers.

The proposals have significant implications for fishers, rural communities, and Ireland’s living fishing heritage. For Sally Barnes of Woodcock Smokery - a long-standing licence holder with over four decades of experience working directly with wild salmon - this moment calls for careful public attention and informed discussion.

Below are Sally’s reflections

Just before Christmas, draft amendments to the Wild Salmon and Sea Trout Tagging Scheme Regulations were released. For small businesses like mine, there was little notice and very little time to prepare. We plan our lives around seasons. We don’t pivot overnight.

In food and fishing, we work season to season, year to year. December is the most critical month of the year, when many businesses generate the income that sustains them through the quieter months.

As a licence holder - and someone whose life’s work has centred on wild salmon - I was not directly alerted to this consultation, nor were many of my colleagues.

While processing Christmas orders, I had to review complex draft regulations and prepare my submission within a very tight four-week timeframe. In reality, considerably less, given the timing of when I became aware of the consultation. The timing made it extraordinarily difficult to respond properly. I was packing Christmas orders by day and reading draft regulations by night, trying to understand what this would mean for the fishers, and for my own future.

Wild salmon and sea trout are under enormous pressure. Habitat loss, declining water quality, climate change, offshore impacts, and marine survival rates are complex, interconnected challenges. The scientific advice published alongside these regulations identifies marine-phase pressures as a significant driver of decline, a pattern observed across the North Atlantic.

There is no dispute that these species must be protected.

However, proposals that focus primarily on removing commercial licence holders, while other significant pressures remain less examined, risk oversimplifying a deeply complex issue.

Many of the remaining inshore commercial fishers in Ireland are multi-generational custodians. They operate within a tightly regulated system, guided by knowledge passed down through generations. For many of us, this work is not merely economic - it is cultural heritage.

It is also important to be clear: neither Woodcock Smokery nor the fishers make a living from wild salmon and sea trout alone. The scale of harvest is modest, seasonal, and supplementary - part of a wider, diversified rural livelihood.

For Woodcock Smokery, the impact of these proposals is direct. The Blackwater River - the source of my wild salmon - would be directly affected by the draft recommendations. If implemented as proposed, commercial harvest from that river would cease effective from the 2026 season.

For context, Woodcock Smokery works with a very small, tightly regulated allocation - in recent years, approximately 250 wild salmon annually. Some days, fishers may spend hours on the river and return with nothing at all. This is not an industrial harvest; it is a carefully managed, seasonal activity that reflects just how fragile the species has become.

This is not simply a policy adjustment. It represents a profound shift for small, heritage-based businesses like mine, and for the fishers on the Blackwater whose knowledge and livelihoods are tied to that river.

Dr Whelan, a fisheries scientist and former Chair of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO), observed as far back as 2006 that “the fish are not coming to the nets.” His words remain relevant today. Despite the ban on offshore sea-fishing, returns have continued to decline in many areas, suggesting that the most significant pressures may lie beyond our rivers - in broader marine and international waters.

If we are to address the crisis facing wild salmon and sea trout honestly, we must look beyond the most visible and most easily regulated sectors. Removing small licence holders may look decisive. But will it address the root causes? The impact of industrial-scale fishing in international waters cannot be overlooked in this conversation. Nor should we ignore the cumulative environmental pressures affecting marine ecosystems more broadly.

If we are serious about protecting wild salmon and sea trout, the conversation must honestly examine all pressures and fairly apply responsibility.

This is not a question of resisting change. It is a question of ensuring that change is informed, balanced, and genuinely effective.

The public consultation is open again for a limited four-week period and closes on 5 March 2026.

I encourage anyone who cares about the future of wild salmon, sea trout, and Ireland’s fishing heritage to read the draft regulations and make a submission.

This is a moment that demands informed voices and fair scrutiny.

View and make a submission on the consultation here →

Wild salmon and sea trout are part of our ecological, cultural, and culinary heritage. The decisions made now will shape their future for generations.

I have dedicated my life to working with wild fish with care and respect. I want them to survive - not as symbols, but as living beings in living waters.