Saving wild salmon: it is all about the money

 

Greetings!   Reading scientific research papers is not a great joy of mine though I will say from even the most mundane presentation I usually discover a new word or two. When will scientists ever learn that obscuring meanings does not help their cause? Regardless, from my latest homework read on your behalf, I came across the word ‘ploidy’. Yes, I had no idea and if you do, well go to the head of the class. It means, for the record, the number of sets of chromosomes in a cell, or in the cells of an organism.   You have guessed it, I was following up on the diploid vs. triploid salmon question that I posed last time, an expert reader helpfully sending me two links to relatively recent scientific research on the topic. The headlines are that it has and can be done, but mortality and cost are barriers.

 

The first research was into the egg production, when the ‘triploiding’ takes place. The conclusions were these two types of salmon [diploid and triploid] have distinct physical and biological characteristics, including differences in their hearts, brains, digestive systems and nutritional needs. Triploid salmon hatched earlier than diploid salmon and reached the halfway point of hatching significantly sooner. Unfortunately, triploid salmon also experienced a higher rate of mortality.   I will slightly sidetrack here; I have always assumed triploid and diploid brown trout differed very little beneath the skin, though the former are distinctly different looking fish to their natural counterparts. I can tell them apart at twenty paces. However, reading this research does make me question what I wrote last year about the triploid trout stocked in our rivers having no behaviour differences to their wild brothers. If their hearts, brains, digestive systems and their nutritional needs are different, surely there are knock on effects? But enough digression for now.   The bigger body of triploid salmon research comes from another study published in 2023 and updated this January of a 2020 cohort of 10 million salmon distributed between 16 Norwegian hatcheries reared until they reached harvest size. The report notes that triploid salmon offered up a different series of challenges to the farmers who, for the most part, coped admirably by changing handling regimes, timings and feeding patterns to raise the fish for the table. However, the conclusion gives us a good indication of why triploids are not the chosen ones, “Overall, the triploids were also inferior in their economic prospect for the farmer, compared to diploids they had lower product quality at harvest, required more feed per kg produced, and had a higher cumulative mortality by the time of harvest despite being harvested earlier and at lower weight.”   So, it is pretty clear, it is all about the money. To my view this means government and regulators have to look salmon producers and consumers in the eye to tell them to take a hit to save our wild salmon. As a nation our leaders seem plenty willing to take numerous such actions in the name of climate change. Surely saving our native salmon from extinction deserves the same?

 

 

The natural power of nature   Mother Nature is an amazing being; five years ago, I was here in the Grand Bahamas in the wake of Hurricane Dorian. The human cost was measured in lives lost. The economic in a swathe of destruction. The natural in the eradication of the mangrove swamps.   In the immediate aftermath the country looked like a lunar landscape the once green fringed islands and coast denuded as if a nuclear bomb has been detonated. There was much despair as mangroves are the lungs that breathe life into the coastal ecosystem. They cover thousands of square miles but they nearly all died within a few months of the hurricane because mangroves, once stripped of their leaves are unable to expel salt, thus slowly dying of saline poisoning from the water that once gave them life. There were all sorts of plans to ‘seed’ the coastline to bring life back but though a few well-meaning attempts were made it hardly touched the edges as I suspect that, rightly, the human and economic took precedence.

 

Mangroves post Hurricane Dorian   However, we forget that as here today and gone tomorrow humans what happened due to Hurricane Dorian might be a once in a lifetime event for us but in the evolution of the Bahamian landscape it is just another happening repeating something that will have occurred many times before, albeit centuries or millennia ago.   Today, I am happy to report, things are looking up. Walter, our guide, who’s house was wiped out, has rebuilt it from the ground up with his own bare hands, funding it as he went, in between his full time guiding work moving in on Christmas Eve just past, a deadline rapidly accelerated at the insistence of his wife! Few people here have hurricane insurance which is ruinously expensive; put it in some sort of UK context you’d be looking at an annual premium of £15,000 plus for a modest home.     Guide Walter with some hints of green on the shoreline   Things are also looking up for the mangrove swamps where natural regeneration is gradually taking hold. Protected by the dead mangroves tiny little mangroves are sprouting, a green fuzz visible across the wasteland. Of course, it will be a full decade or more before we are anywhere near to being back to pre-hurricane times but it is at least a potent reminder of the resilience of Mother Nature.     Mangroves pre Hurricane Dorian     Taking aim at the wrong target   As I read the account of a recent meeting held by the Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) group where a show of hands at the start and end of the meeting showed 100% of the audience in favour of renationalising the water industry, I was put in mind of two political quotes.   Firstly, Ronald Reagan who said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'” And Margaret Thatcher who said of the Labour MP’s who voted against their own government, precipitating its fall and her consequential 1979 election victory, “They are turkeys voting for Christmas.” Let me give you the main reasons why renationalising the water industry is such a terrible idea.

 

WASP show of hands

 

To start with, we already have nationalisation in its purest form in Northern Ireland where privatisation never happened and where river pollution is considerably worse than in mainland UK. In Wales there are not-for-profit water companies where the pollution record is on a par with their English counterparts. Add to that a study of the multiple different ownership models across Europe that concluded there was no correlation between pollution outcomes and ownership type.   Secondly, we do almost have de facto nationalisation through the regulatory structure provided by Ofwat. As a water company you are not free to set your own prices, build new facilities nor invest without the say so of Ofwat. And that is without even taking into account the planning system which positively discourages major infrastructure projects. Anyone for a reservoir? Privatisation was meant to unshackle the water industry from political oversight. Quite the reverse has happened with water companies effectively becoming state service providers of sewage treatment and water provision at below market cost.   Thirdly, even if we struck gold with a renationalised water industry that transformed sewage treatment, we would only be part of the way forward because, guess what, the farming industry is a far greater polluter of our rivers. Do we need to nationalise farming as well? Of course, that is absurd but logically if you consider the state can reform one polluter why not all polluters?   And finally, there is abstraction, something dear to my heart on the chalkstreams. Every year we lose dozens, probably hundreds of miles of river, as the headwaters are terminally sucked dry by the permanent lowering of the water table. Does anyone believe that a government led water industry is going to pass up free water instead of spending billions on new reservoirs, desalination plants and a national grid for water?   The final irony is the WASP meeting demographic: they are the Boomers (including myself) who have had the free ride from the 1989 privatisation - thirty six years of cheap water. And not only that but they have also probably indirectly benefitted from water company profits though a state or private pension.   The narrative is that water companies are owned by rapacious capitalists intent of fleecing the consumer, as sort of cross between Rupert Murdoch and Mr Burns of The Simpsons cartoon fame. The truth is more mundane. Water companies are for the most part either publicly traded where pension funds hold large tranches of stock or private companies where the primary investors are pension funds. One way or another those much reviled dividends have often found their way back into the bank accounts of the very people who put their hands up in favour of renationalisation. Maybe they are turkeys as well.

 

 

The bird that checked in but will never leave   I am sitting in an airport on a small sandy island, all blue glass and white steel, one of those much beloved of governments seduced by the shiny promise of PFI to build a facility for a third of a million passengers a year but with barely a quarter of that number ever likely to arrive.   To while away the time, we have been watching the antics of a little sparrow who seems to have made this aircraft hanger of a place his (or her maybe?) home. Perched high on a strut he has a perfect view of the dining area. Clearly attuned to the transitory nature of the clientele he waits for a table to be vacated, swooping down to take whatever leftovers take his fancy, all the time with an eye out for the wait staff, returning to his perch once they come to clear the table though they seem unbothered by his scavenging ways.

 

We are pretty well the last flight of the day which prompts my travelling companion to wonder what will happen to the bird when everyone goes home. Will he be locked in? Will he make it through the night without water? I am less convinced the sparrow is in mortal danger but my companion is less flinty hearted heading to the bar to buy a bottle of water and beg a saucer to victual the bird until the following day.   As it turns out the bird will indeed be locked in but by choice. According to the bartender everyone knows him as he simply refuses to leave. Other sparrows come and go through the automatic doors but our buddy chooses to stay, well into his second full year of residency, sustained each night by water and food left out on the bar. I have just looked it up – sparrows can live up 25 years in captivity away from the predations and depravations of life in the wild. My money is on him outlasting the airport he has made his home.

 

 

Quiz   Back to the normal random collection of questions inspired by the events that took place on this date in history or topics in the Newsletter.   1)       From which Shakespeare play is the quote, "There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow".   2)       Who wrote the philosophical fiction and gothic horror novel The Picture of Dorian Gray?     3)       What do you call an animal with four sets of chromosomes?    Answers are at the bottom of this Newsletter.

 

Have a good weekend.  Best wishes,

 

 

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

 

 

1)       Hamlet 2)       Oscar Wilde 3)       A tetraploid