River Dee salmon restoration phase 3 smolts

This programme of work is to align the IOA with a new project being run by the River Dee Trust, Dee District Salmon Fishery Board and in partnership the Atlantic Salmon Trust and the university of the Highlands and Islands , called "Save the Spring". Alongside a landscape scale habitat restoration programme , the first 5 years of this programme will include trialling novel conservation methods to boost numbers of the most vulnerable genetic components of the wild salmon population.

In an extension to the concurrent pilot project (1971590) in April 2025 a small number of wild salmon smolts (<100) will be collected during the spring in-river migration from the River Muick, by River Dee Trust staff. At point of capture these fish will be PIT tagged , have a tissue sample taken for genetic analysis and then transported to MMERL where they will be treated as stock fish and reared in designated seawater tanks for up to 2 years . Fish will receive standard husbandry and veterinary treatment as stock fish and be periodically graded to allow for health checks. Fish that are considered fully sexually mature will undergo health checks and be transported back to the River Dee in the late autumn . Upon leaving MMERL responsibility for the fish will be transferred back to the Dee River Trust. They will then be released into the river to act as as supplementation to the adult breeding stock . The success of the programme will be monitored by further genetic analysis of the parentage from samples drawn from the juvenile populations in the sub-catchments around the release point. Monitoring will be undertaken by the River Dee Trust .