Wild salmon crisis to feature in Landward special

The wild Scottish salmon industry off Scotland’s west coast is struggling.

The issue is being highlighted on Tuesday, in Saving Our Salmon: A Landward Special on BBC Two Scotland.

The wild Atlantic salmon has been at the heart of Scottish rural life for centuries. This ‘king of fish’ attracts anglers from far and wide.

Yet Scotland isn’t only home to wild salmon – today all over out west coast and northern isles, millions of salmon are bred each year in over 200 specially built salmon farms.

In little over five decades, salmon farming has grown exponentially to become a multi-billion pound industry and is Scotland’s number one food export, providing full time jobs for thousands of people in some of our remotest communities.

Yet, as stocks of wild salmon in our west coast rivers plummet, salmon farming and its environmental impact is being placed under the spotlight by environmentalists and anglers alike.

They say salmon farms provide a perfect environment for the breeding of parasitic sea lice which they believe are spreading to wild salmon killing them.

This Landward special explores how two distinct communities and industries – anglers and fish farmers – have been brought head to head in a battle over one beautiful fish.

The progamme will be screened on 16 October on BBC Two Scotland, from 9-10pm.