Wild salmon off menu in Northern Ireland

It has also asked anglers to practise catch and release when fishing for salmon rather than killing them. The call comes after research indicates a significant downturn in the abundance of wild Atlantic salmon, according to BBC News Northern Ireland "The continued commercial exploitation of wild Atlantic salmon and killing of salmon caught by rod and line in the DCAL jurisdiction is currently untenable," said the Northern Ireland fisheries minister, Caral Ni Chuilin according to BBC. "We have to take further steps to conserve salmon populations." Conservation targets had been set for a number of rivers and subsequent monitoring of those rivers showed they failed to reach the targets most years from 2002. Long-term monitoring of the survival of salmon during the marine phase of their lifecycle at Bushmills Salmon Station showed a decline from about 30 per cent prior to 1997, to less than 5 per cent today.