Kyle smolt tagging scheme hopes to turn up answers over fate of 'missing salmon'

Kyle of Sutherland Fisheries has reported that acoustic tags have been placed over the last few weeks on 248 smolts out of three rivers – the Oykel, Cassley and Shin.

The trap, tag and release project was established in a bid to try to find out why less than five per cent of wild salmon manage to return after leaving Scottish rivers.

The ‘Missing Salmon’ scheme involves using acoustic tags to track the progress of smolts (young salmon) as they migrate out to sea.

Kyle of Sutherland Fisheries is working with the Atlantic Salmon Trust and others on the Moray Firth tracking project.

A social media post reveals the operation was held up this year by cold weather at the end of March, but the first fish had been tagged in early April.

Workers also undertake “smolt mitigation” work with the aim of helping the smolts out of the river system and into the sea.

A post reads “During the spring we trap and transport thousands of salmon smolts as part of our mitigation activities."

Previous tagging has shown that without this operation, a large percentage of smolts would not manage to exit the rivers.

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