Three-year salmon project comes to an end

A three-year European project, which had a €3.87m budget and concludes this month, has provided invaluable research and findings to support the conservation of Atlantic salmon in the River Shannon system.
The Atlantic Aquatic Resource Conservation (AARC) project is the culmination of work undertaken by 13 international partnerships across five European countries and has made a valuable contribution to the Shannon Salmon Restoration Plan (SSRP), which looks at redressing the decline in Atlantic salmon populations.
The project dealt with restorative initiatives for Atlantic salmon in the Shannon river system and included determining the genetic composition of contemporary and historical populations of salmon in the Shannon and comparing the relative performance in the wild of the progeny od Feale, Mulkear and Shannon wild hatchery salmon populations.
The Shannon AARC project will also address issues pertaining to fish passage, water quality, habitat and hatchery programmes, in addition to the construction of a project-specific GIS, co-ordination of stock assessment surveys and the promotion of catchment management.
The project will also help identify important factors in the conservation of Atlantic salmon in the Shannon. It will provide a set of useful maps and a spatial visualisation tool for improved planning and development throughout the Shannon catchment.
Results will help inform fisheries staff of the current status of Atlantic salmon populations in the Shannon as well as p rovide a useful inventory or potential and/or historical salmon locations in the Shannon.
The project will also benefit inter-agency co-operation, particularly in relation to River Shannon fisheries management and will strengthen the links with relevant research institutions and international fisheries experts. AARC has provided an important instrument to facilitate a pan-European approach to conserving indigenous and migratory fish stocks.
The Irish partners in the project were Inland Fisheries Ireland, ESB Fisheries Conservation, University College Cork and The Marine Institute. The budget for the Irish partners over the three years was €754,242.
Delegates from five countries attended the AARC conference in Limerick last week. The conference, launched by Minister Fergus O’Dowd, showcased integrated collaborative water resource management projects across the European Atlantic Arc.
Minister O’Dowd highlighted the importance of EU research programmes like AARC in enhancing international research and collaboration.
“The strong inter-regional co-operation, under AARC, between regional authorities and research institutions has increased our knowledge of the conservation requirements of these important European fish species.
“AARC has ensured that we will play our part in utilising this new knowledge and co-operation for the enhancement of the conservation status of important EU species and habitats,” said Minister O’Dowd.