Spring salmon smolt counts underway

As part of Grosvenor’s catchment-wide restoration project in the Highlands, which aims to restore endangered populations of wild Atlantic salmon, the team have started recording the numbers of juvenile salmon, known as smolts, that are leaving the river as they begin their migration to the fishes’ feeding grounds, hundreds of miles out to sea.

The spring smolt run sees thousands of young salmon – usually two years old – leave the river to travel as far as Greenland where they will spend up to two years feeding and growing into adult fish before returning home to reproduce.

Only a small percentage of the thousands of fish that set out on their marine migration will return to the river system to spawn the next generation of salmon.

Changes in the sea environment are thought to be a key driver in the decline of wild Atlantic salmon. The focus of Project Laxford, Grosvenor’s decade long conservation project in partnership with the Atlantic Salmon Trust (AST), is to implement targeted action to restore the catchment, providing the best conditions for the fish to thrive at sea and enable more salmon to return to the river.

The number of smolts leaving the River Laxford each season is one of several indicators of the health of the ecosystem and its ability to support wild Atlantic salmon and other species.

As it’s impossible to record every smolt leaving the river, for the next several weeks the Project Laxford team will take sample measurements of the young salmon using a mark recapture system to estimate the total population of smolts leaving the river.

Last year, it was estimated more than 39,000 smolts left the River Laxford in the spring.   

This data helps us to improve our understanding of salmon populations in the river as well as the impact of any interventions. The knowledge gained from the project will be shared, benefiting other river systems throughout the world.

To learn more about Project Laxford, visit our dedicated web page here.