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To limit fishing in the vast feeding grounds near Greenland, Atlantic nations first negotiated quota agreements in 1972. But schools of salmon born in Scotland often do not swim all the way to Greenland, preferring to feed closer to home near the Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago linked to Denmark. Between 1978 and 1980, the Faroese fishermen, who were not bound by any international pacts, increased their annual catch of salmon tenfold, to almost 1,000 metric tons.
In response, the ten-nation European Community pressed the Faroes to cut back their salmon fishing. An agreement was reached earlier this year, limiting the Faroes to 750 metric tons between October 1981 and May 1982, and to 625 metric tons the following season. In another accord, reached last January after four years of talks, the European Community, plus Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the U.S. and Canada, created regional commissions to regulate the interception of Atlantic salmon returning to their rivers. Says Alick Buchanan-Smith, Britain's Minister for Fisheries: "The intercepting fisheries, we believe, are quite wrong. They do nothing to increase the stocks of the fish." Britain is hoping to ban the netting of returning salmon altogether.
Despite these pressures on the salmon population, the species itself seems assured of continued existence. Successful techniques have been developed for the breeding of captive salmon in underwater cages. In Scotland, salmon farmers are expected to produce 2,000 metric tons of salmon this year and 4,000 metric tons by 1985.
That practice, however, offers no solace to sport fishermen. Captive salmon may taste like their unconfined brethren, but, since they never swim free, they are no substitute for the rapid-swimming fish who have tantalized fishermen for centuries in the pools and eddies of Scotland's wild streams.
—By Kenneth M. Pierce.
Reported by Tom Levenson/ London