Watch: Crown actors Dominic West and Jim Murray explore salmon fishing on the River Deveron

Watch as The Crown actors Dominic West and Jim Murray discover what is being done to help wild Atlantic salmon numbers in the River Deveron.

They are an indicator for the health of our rivers, coastal environment and seas.

But iconic wild Atlantic salmon numbers are in crisis having suffered a decline of 70% across the North Atlantic in the last 30 years.

In the River Deveron, in Aberdeenshire, conservationists have launched a new project in a bid to protect the salmon, by safeguarding them against the effects of climate change.

Project Deveron, is the result of a partnership between the Atlantic Salmon Trust and Deveron, Bogie & Isla Rivers Charitable Trust. 

It will see a large-scale programme of habitat restoration throughout the catchment, and will feature a range of cutting edge technologies to monitor the success of the habitat restoration and its impact on the salmon population.

To launch the project, stars of hit Netflix show The Crown, Dominic West and Jim Murray, have featured in a short film about salmon fishing in the river.

In the film, Cold, Clean Water, the actors travel through the Deveron catchment in an INEOS Grenadier, meeting with the minds leading the project and learning about the restoration measures being planned. 

These include the restoration of native riverside woodland to cool water temperatures and  provide habitat for insects and reducing agricultural pollution by planting living buffer strips.

The team also plans to remove barriers to salmon migration – the first of which is the removal of an historic dam which is preventing wild salmon and trout from accessing 12km of spawning ground. 

To monitor the response of the wild salmon population, each year young salmon ‘parr’ will be  implanted with microchips – the same technology used to chip a pet dog or cat.

Their behaviour and survival success is recorded as they move down the river, out to sea, and back again as mature adults, sending a signal to antennae buried in the riverbed and logging data onto a hard drive. 

Paired with a state-of-the-art sonar imaging fish counter, these methods will provide an essential view of the salmon population.