In October, the team convened at NASCO’s headquarters in Edinburgh to present SMOLTrack findings and engage with external experts in salmonid research.
Key discussion points included:
- Post-spawning kelt survival
- Protecting kelts after spawning can be vital for boosting salmon populations
- Previous attempts to recondition kelts through feeding trials have been costly and ineffective, underscoring the need for better approaches
- Southern salmon population monitoring
- There is ongoing monitoring of the most southern salmon population in Portugal
- This population is critically endangered, with very few salmon remaining
- The population exhibit unique genetic variability, highlighting the importance of targeted conservation efforts
- Handling and tagging protocols
- A recent study by SMT partners found that trapping did not adversely impact the behaviour or survival of migrating smolts, suggesting trapping remains a low-impact capture method (Sortland et al. 2024).
- Innovative tagging technology
- Kennedy et al (2023) showed that by activating and deactivating acoustics tags, it is possible to detect both seaward smolt migration and adult salmon returning from the sea. This method may increase our understanding of adult return and survival without any additional cost.
- SMT partners in Ireland and Northern Ireland have tagged salmon smolt with miniature data storage tags (DST) that record temperature. So far, one adult salmon has been recaptured, providing the first dataset of a full marine cycle.
- The studies have also provided important insight on how to optimize the return og tagged adult salmon.
- Plans are underway for a future tagging-retention study utilizing dummy DST-tags to test different insertion sites for optimal retention
- Greenland expedition
- The expedition was successful in capturing and sampling Atlantic salmon in eastern Greenland
- Researchers were able to hold Atlantic salmon in live wells for extended periods
- This creates future opportunities to genetically assign salmon and tag them according to the facilities available in their home-rivers. The possible use is limited by insufficient resolution of the current genetic assignment methods.