Atlantic salmon

Scientific: Salmo salar. English: Salmon, Atlantic salmon. Icelandic: Lax. For more languages see The Marine Animal Dictionary.

Biology and distribution

The salmon is a pelagic fish in the ocean but needs to swim up rivers to spawn. The juveniles grow in the rivers, until they reach 10-15 cm in length, when they are 2 to 5 years old. They enter the sea in spring or early summer and are at stage called smolts. The salmon grows much faster in the ocean, feeding on small pelagic fish such as capelin and sandeels and also pelagic crustaceans. The main feeding grounds are considered to be off western Greenland and in the Norwegian Sea.

After 1 to 3 years in the ocean, the salmon reaches maturity and heads back to the river it was hatched in where it spawns in the autumn or early winter. The spawning process is very energy demanding for the salmon, especially as mature salmon does not eat anything in the freshwater.. Most of them die of exhaustion after spawning, but some survive, wait in the river over the winter and head back to sea in the spring. These can spawn again the next autumn. The salmon can grow up to 150 cm and 50 kg in size. The most common size in catches is 60 to 100 cm long.

The Atlantic salmon is found all over the North Atlantic from Connecticut to southern Greenland, in Iceland, the Faroe Islands and in Europe from the Bay of Biscay to the White sea. Many salmon stocks, especially in the southern part of the range, have declined or disappeared in recent decades due to overfishing or pollution. It is still common in Icelandic rivers and is found all around the country. It is least abundant in rivers along the East coast and in the Vestfirdir peninsula.

Catch and fishing gear

Some marine gillnet fisheries were conducted for salmon until 1998. Now all of the fisheries are either for sport or limited gillnet fisheries in rivers. The sport catch is about 30 to 40 thousand individuals while about 6,000 are fished with gillnet. The gillnet catch has been declining from about 20,000 individuals in 1975, while the long term average is stable in sport fisheries.

Although the total salmon catch corresponds to only about 100 tonnes annually, the salmon fisheries are very important for the economy as the estimated value of each salmon is about $1000. However, it is not the product itself, the flesh, that is valuable but the service around the fisheries, the tourism.

The salmon fishing season is from May 20^th to September 30^th. In most Icelandic rivers, rod is the only allowed fishing gear. There are a fixed number of rods used in each river as decided by the Directorate of Fisheries. There is a general ban on marine salmon fishing in Icelandic waters and net fishery only takes place in the larger glacial rivers. The fishing rights go with the ownership of the land adjacent to the rivers.

Aquaculture

Salmon farming began in 1984 and has gone through many ups and downs. More information on this is available on the page on aquaculture.

Processing and markets

Wild salmon is mostly consumed by the fishers or locally. It is either eaten fresh, pickled or smoked. Smoking is especially popular.

References and further information

References: (Jónsson & Pálsson, 2006).

For full citation and further information on the main species in general see this page

Hreiðar Þór Valtýsson, University of Akureyri