Native salmon have deserted Norway’s rivers – will they ever return?

09/09/2024

Thirty three of Norway's rivers were closed this year during the fishing season as salmon farming and the climate crisis threaten the fish's future. This spring the salmon did not come back from the ocean, raising such alarm over the collapse of the salmon population that the rivers were abruptly closed for the first time. Visitors cancelled plans and stayed away, devastating local economies which revolve around salmon fishing.

Scientists have been warning of the rapidly declining North Atlantic salmon population for years, which in Norway has shrunk from more than a million in the early 1980s to about 500,000, a drop largely linked to the climate crisis. Now, the latest figures show Atlantic salmon stocks are at a historic low.

Experts say the species is at imminent threat from salmon farming escapes and disease, which could result in wild salmon being replaced entirely by a hybrid species.

Torbjørn Forseth, head of the Norwegian scientific advisory committee for Atlantic salmon management, says wild Norwegian salmon could become extinct. "We are replacing wild salmon with escaped farm salmon," he says. "That's in the long term a major threat because then you lose all these local adaptations." Each of Norway's 450 salmon rivers has its own salmon which have adapted to the specific conditions of the local environment. "If that is replaced with a hybrid between wild and farmed salmon then you are losing something very, very important."

Open-net farming at sea has, he believes, reached its "biological limit".

While the broader factors linked to the climate crisis are not something that Norway can quickly do something about, the human-made impact of fish farming is something that could be swiftly acted upon, says Forseth. He is calling for a completely different approach to fish-farm management, separating farmed and wild fish populations.

Salmon in Norway dates back thousands of years, but the sport of fly-fishing as it is known today was introduced by the English in the 1820s. The sudden closure of 33 rivers three weeks into the salmon fishing season in June was a shock to many.

Vegard Heggem, salmon campaigner for Norske Lakseelver (Norwegian Salmon Rivers), says salmon farming needs to switch to closed containment and he wants to see a government-imposed deadline on doing so as Canada has done in British Columbia. Consumers also need to be better informed about how their salmon is farmed, he says. 

"For Norway it [the salmon] is like a symbol species for the country. It's our panda. It's just not acceptable as a nation to allow the wild salmon to be turned into a museum item – it's there but you can't enjoy it, you can't touch it, can't fish it."