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Eggs incubating for Bruachaig salmon restoration programme

Posted: Thursday 11 December, 2008 @ 16:40:37

Simon Stewart of Coulin Estate stripping eggs from a salmon

The Bruachaig River above Kinlochewe is one of the most important salmon spawning streams in the River Ewe system. In the 1970s, adult salmon carcasses were found along headwater streams 10km above a complex series of falls located 2km upstream from Incheril. Until the 1990s, juvenile salmon of wild origin were found by WRFT electro-fishing above the falls, but not since. The Bruachaig salmon population, believed to have been the main 'spring salmon' producing population in the Ewe system, had been extirpated.

In 2005, WRFT, initially with support from the Tripartite Working Group, set up a restocking programme in an attempt to restore a wild population in this part of the Ewe catchment. During the late autumn, locally native broodstock are captured using rod and line from the Kinlochewe River below the falls (with special permission from the Scottish Government to catch broodstock outwith the salmon fishing season). Fish are stripped at Coulin hatchery where eggs are incubated prior to being stocked as fry in the spring.

Many thanks to Philip Smith of Coulin Estate, and estate keepers Neil Morrison and Simon Stewart for their continued support for this project. WRFT would also like to thank Angus Morrison and John Ogle.