Ian Davidson, Senior Technical Advisor Salmonids for Natural Resources Wales, has worked at Chester’s fish trap since the project began in 1991.
Sadly, recent statistics paint a dismal picture: In 2018, UK rivers recorded the lowest salmon returns in history. To monitor their health and estimate the river’s population the salmon are weighed, scale samples are taken, and they are tagged before being released to continue their journey. It offers an energy-saving shortcut to the salmon bypassing the steep weir, whilst allowing scientists to temporarily detain the fish.
A record lowĬhester is home to the UK’s longest-running scientific fish trap, housed in a small brick building next to the weir. For example, look down from the ancient city walls of Chester, UK, to the River Dee in the summer months and you might just spot a shadow moving below the surface of the water. This regal fish is now often associated with pristine habitats in the rivers of the Scottish Highlands or Nova Scotia, Canada, so it might surprise you to learn the migratory routes of Atlantic salmon pass through plenty of European cities. Romans called it ‘the leaper’, referring to its athletic ability to leap obstacles as it navigates from the sea back to its spawning grounds upriver. Behind this impressive appearance is a remarkable lifecycle – hatched in the gravel of a freshwater river, it journeys hundreds, even thousands of miles out to the ocean to bulk up before returning to its birthplace to breed and begin the cycle again. Giant specimens can reach over a metre in length, even an average-sized adult can weigh more than 5kg.
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