Sir, - The sea trout collapse in areas of the western seaboard where salmon farms are present is a matter of record in a stack of official publications. To add to their history of attempting to divert blame and of berating those who criticise them, the salmon farmers' representatives now appear to be deluding themselves that no such collapse exists (May 20th).
This is the ninth year in which lice infested sea trout with their heads and fins eaten away (see the photograph with Kevin O'Sullivan's report of May 6th) have been returning to rivers in Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry and Cork. How could this debacle be described otherwise than as Ireland's worst environmental disaster? Three years have elapsed since the Sea Trout Task Force defined the virtual elimination of lice on salmon farms as the way forward. Since then, while patchy improvements in sea trout stocks have occurred where fallowing or chemical control has been temporarily successful, the number of farms which have achieved effective and sustained control can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
If anyone of the affected bays was polluted by oil there would be a huge public outcry. Unfortunately, the pollution which is responsible for the destruction of sea trout is more subtle and becomes visible only at this time of year when the newly migrated smolts come back in tatters.
Why not establish whether politicians on the doorstep have a real environmental agenda? Instead of asking them about Sellafield, which represents someone else's dirty washing, find out their attitude to a matter which is entirely in their own hands: saving our sea trout. - Yours, etc.,
Chairman,
Save Our Sea Trout, Windgates,
Bray.