What is the Likely Suspects Framework?
Image: Chris Conroy
In the past 40 years, wild salmon populations have declined significantly. Given the abundance of farmed salmon available on supermarket shelves it may not even be apparent to the general public that wild salmon are struggling. However, during the period in which salmon has become so familiar on dinner plates, numbers of wild Atlantic salmon have tumbled.
The life cycle of the Atlantic salmon includes a remarkably challenging journey taking in rivers, estuaries, and the open ocean, so it is perhaps little surprise that relatively few make it back from their time at sea to the rivers they were spawned in. However, the percentage that survive is falling lower and lower. The life cycle itself has not changed – so something else is happening which means Atlantic salmon are no longer thriving in the way that they should.
Historically, conservation projects have tended to focus solely on individual species. However, the web of life is so complex that considering things from a single viewpoint can lead to an incomplete understanding. As with all species, salmon are part of a wider ecosystem, affected by their many interactions and influencing the ecosystem around them. The Likely Suspects Framework will use a broader approach by considering existing environmental and biological data, alongside new data from this project, allowing new interpretation of knowledge focused through the lens of the salmon life cycle.
As salmon interact with environments and species across such a range of habitats, there are a multitude of possible reasons for their decline. However, we already have a good understanding of some parts of the life cycle, and some of the main challenges, so there is hope. Fisheries scientists have been researching this area for many years, and the knowledge we have has been building – highlighting several possible drivers for these declines, or periods of the life cycle which are vulnerable to environmental changes. These candidates make up the Likely Suspects.
The Alliance’s vision for the Likely Suspects Framework (LSF) project is to develop a new approach to identify where changes in salmon survival are occurring across their entire life-cycle, provide a forward look for stock prospects, and a framework which can guide salmon management decisions. It will play an important role in advancing salmon management efforts in response to growing pressures mediated by global –scale drivers, such as climate change.
As an Alliance of five organisations, we will build on the existing work of our partners and maximise our impact by taking a coordinated approach and vital action in order to halt and reverse the decline of wild Atlantic salmon.
The goal of the Missing Salmon Alliance is to build an evidence-base to influence national and international decision-makers to regulate activities that adversely impact wild Atlantic salmon.
The Missing Salmon Alliance
The MSA is comprised of the following members:
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Atlantic Salmon Trust, the Angling Trust with Fish Legal, The Rivers Trust and Fisheries Management Scotland.
https://www.missingsalmonalliance.org