Minister caught up in dispute

Anlgers accused Cunningham of being “disingenuous” and prepared to sacrifice west coast fishing interests, the newspaper wrote.

The Salmon and Trout Association (S&TA) has collected 17,000 signatures for a petition urging the Scottish Government to remove all sea-based fish farms from estuaries of major wild salmon rivers in order to lessen the impact of sea lice.

The association also wants smolt farms banned from operating within wild salmon river systems.

The ill feeling between the S&TA and the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Association (SSPA) arose in written evidence submitted to the Scottish Parliament’s public petitions committee.

When asked to provide further comments on the petition, SSPA chief executive Scott Landsburgh said the association was “dismayed” that a document “so wholly ill-founded and ill-informed” should lead to the committee asking supplementary questions.

Cunningham in her response said the east coast rod catches had shown no clear changes in recent years. In contrast catches on the west coast had “declined markedly”, she added, but the reasons were “not clear”, the Press and Journal reported.

The biggest salmon rivers – the Tweed, Tay, Esks, Dee and Spey – drained into the North Sea on the east coast where there was a presumption against aquaculture development, she said.