Scotland’s Salmon Crisis Wasn’t an Accident — It Was a Political Choice!

Scotland is facing a crisis far bigger than salmon farming, wild fish declines, rural mismanagement, or stopping Drilling for Oil in the North Sea. Those are symptoms. The real disease is deeper.

A political culture built on delay, deflection, and the weaponisation of “insufficient data” to avoid responsibility.

Never was this more evident than during last weeks last weeks aquaculture debate at Hollyrood with ministers dodging even the most basic questions about mortality rates and environmental impact of Salmon Farms.

But this culture didn’t start with salmon farms. I watched it evolving decades ago — whilst working as a ghillie on The River Spey.

Over two decades ago, on the banks of the River Spey, I met a man, someone who knew nothing about salmon, it was his first time ever on the river, however, he quietly, but confidently predicted the collapse of one of Scotland’s great natural assets. He wasn’t a biologist, a ghillie, or a conservationist. He was a technical analyst — a man who read graphs for a living.

His name was Frost. He’d been taken salmon fishing for the first time by his father, a keen salmon angler. While the rest of us talked fishing, he was much more interested in the long‑term catch graph from 1952 to the millennium sitting on the table of the lunch hut. He asked a few questions about angling effort, tackle, any other long term forms of fishing and the end of netting. He then looked up and delivered a verdict that should have shaken the foundations of Scottish fisheries management.

“Your days of 10,000 salmon are over. Five thousand will soon be normal. And it may go as low as three.”

A Political View of Wild Salmon

At the time, the Spey was still reporting around 10,000 rod‑caught fish a year. The official narrative was that everything was fine. But those of us who worked the river every day, the ghillies, the people keeping a watchful eye on the water — knew something was very wrong. Each year Juvenile numbers fell and the river felt quieter. Catches were being propped up by better gear, more efficient anglers and longer fishing hours.

When I took Frost’s prediction and concern of Ghillies to the Chairman of the Spey Fishery Board, he smiled reassuringly. “The long‑term average of the Spey is 10,000,” he said. “There’s no reason to think that won’t continue!”

That moment taught me something I’ve seen repeated across Scotland ever since.

Institutions don’t fail because they lack information. They fail because they refuse to act on it.

For years, ghillies raised concerns. We were dismissed as “anecdotal.” We were told the science wasn’t ready, the data was incomplete, the models weren’t robust enough and much more work [data] was required. Meanwhile, the river declined exactly as predicted by both Ghillies and Analyst.

Fast‑forward to this year, and I found myself in the Scottish Parliament listening to the same script — this time about salmon farming. Wildfish and Ken Reid had organised a protest against expansion on the west coast. Outside, the urgency was real. Inside, the debate was theatre.

Rural Affairs Minister, Mairi Gougeon deflected every question with the familiar, but articulate vocabulary of political paralysis:

• “awaiting scientific evidence,”

• “ongoing consultations,”

• “incomplete data,”

• “management plans under development.”

When asked what level of mortality on a fish farm was acceptable — 10%? — she couldn’t give a straight answer. Imagine telling a client your model was “skewed” and expecting to keep your job. But in politics, vagueness is a shield.

And that’s the point and the problem.

The system is designed to avoid responsibility, not deliver solutions.

It rewards delay. It incentivises caution. It elevates process over outcome. Not only does this encourage, but it nurtures and feeds off "decline" — whether that be - Rivers, Salmon Fishing, Public Services, Rural Industries, or North Sea Oil!!

The tragedy is, like all those listed above, that Scotland’s wild salmon fishery could, even now, still should, be worth far more than the megre £100 million figure often quoted. If Managed properly, it should stand shoulder‑to‑shoulder with aquaculture in economic value, and, with similar enthusiasm, embraced by politicians and public, not simply as a "rich mans past time", but like the whisky industry, which its linked very closely too, a Scottish Treasure! Instead, it has been allowed to wither while committees debate definitions and ministers wait for perfect data and others plant trees for introduced Beavers to play with.

As Frost once told me about his own industry:

“Only one in ten actually know the job. The rest are politicians who dance to someone else’s tune and paycheck.”

He wasn’t talking about Holyrood. But he could have been!

The decline of Scotland’s wild salmon wasn’t inevitable. What’s inevitable is the outcome of a system that refuses to act until every variable is controlled, every risk eliminated, every stakeholder appeased.

Perfection has become the enemy of progress. And delay has become a political strategy.

Until that changes, Scotland and the UK, for that matter, will continue to lose the things that make it unique — not because we lacked warning, but because we lacked the courage to listen and act in a way we know is correct.