[Tangled]

Pink salmon are due to return this year, what is your vote for the first report in a UK river?

For added points - in which river?

 

[Tangled]

Here's a clue, 2021

 

[Tangled]

I think the jury is out on that one, what I find difficult to understand is why this salmon is doing so well compared to the Atlantic salmon.

The main suspect at the moment is global warming - temperature of the Norwegian Sea seems to predict fish numbers. More fish are still in the north of Norway with many fewer the further south you go. It's a possibility that the UK may not see very many. These are Norway's numbers for fish caught - actual numbers are estimated at somewhere under 2 million in 2021

Numbers of Pinks caught in Norwegian rivers

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Year​	Pinks​	Rivers​
2015​	1,700​	12​
2017​	12,000​	260​
2019​	19,000​	180​
2021​	167,000​	271​

Source: Berntsen, NINA

Massive growth there but we didn't see anything like that in the UK

Scotland 2017 139 fish, 2019 20 and 2021 169.

 

[Tangled]

We only know their behaviours so far from how they behave where they belong. There's two problems with that. Where they live there are several other salmon species that may influence their behaviour in the rivers, those other species don't exist here so they can go wherever they like. That may well be to do what they do normally or it may give them free rein to do whatever they like. We don't know but we do know that they can go a long way up rivers occasionally.

And they are apparently very adaptable fish, they call it plasticity. Fact is, we don't know.