In the course of a few hours one day in April, 14 people were caught poaching in the Signaldal River in Nord-Troms. Half of them came from Finland, where the salmon parasite Gyrodactylus salaris is widespread and the salmon is resistant. And the poachers have not turned up anywhere to clean their equipment, as everyone is required to do when they buy a fishing licence. In addition, the waterway is closed to fishing. Poaching can thus become a new disaster for the river. For the leader of the landowner group, this is bloody serious. – Not for the two or three fish they catch, we can live with that. But if there is infection in the river again, I don’t know anyone who is willing to go back to the start and start again, says Harald Olsborg. Harald Olsborg, leader of the landowners’ association of the Signaldal River. Photo: Mathias Sommerseth Kjellmo / news Landowners, fishermen and volunteers fear that the deadly salmon parasite will return to the river. The Signaldal River is one of 51 waterways in Norway that have been infected with the salmon parasite since the 1970s. – It kills all the salmon. Gyrodactylus salaris is a parasite that chews through the skin of the salmon. That’s what communications manager at Norske Lakseelver, Pål Mugaas, says. He says that large-scale work has been done to eradicate gyro in Norwegian rivers. Now there are only two areas that have the parasite, in Møre and Romsdal and Drammen. – If the gyro had not been knocked back, it could potentially have wiped out all wild salmon in Norway. Pål Mugaas, communications manager at Norske Lakseelver, says that the fight against the salmon parasite has been a success. Photo: Ayna Heilong Tyvfiske For the past eight years, landowners, fishermen and volunteers have worked to restore and re-establish the fish stocks in the Signaldal River. Olsborg says that there was not a single fish in the river after the last rotenone treatment in 2016. – It was empty. It was a dead river. In November in the fjord, the Skibotnelva, Signaldalelven and Kitdalselva were finally declared healthy. Work to revive the river is well under way. Inside the hatchery, roe cans are being prepared to be released into the river. But then there were those poachers. The three rivers that were declared healthy last year are part of the Skibotnvasserdraget. According to the river authority, just under 200 poachers were caught in 2020, over 100 in 2021 and just under 200 poachers in 2022 in the watercourse. The number of poachers in the Signaldal River worries Olsborg. The river has been declared healthy, but fishing is still prohibited. Nevertheless, several have been caught with the fishing rod along the river. Photo: Mathias Sommerseth Kjellmo / news Half of those caught for illegal fishing at the Signaldal River that day in April were from Finland, a country that naturally has the salmon parasite. The salmon in Finland and Sweden are resistant to gyro. But it is not the Norwegian fish. According to the Norwegian Food Safety Authority, the parasite can survive for several days in moist environments and can be spread with fishing equipment, nets, canoes and water from infected waterways. – That is why there are very strict rules about disinfection in the salmon waterways in Norway, says Mugaas. He believes poachers have a very irresponsible attitude. There is still snow and ice along the riverbed of the Signaldal River. Photo: Mathias Sommerseth Kjellmo / news – The major natural crime of poaching also worries the head of the Norwegian Food Safety Authority in Troms and Svalbard, Torkjell Andersen. – They may not want to be as concerned about preventing infection when you are already engaged in an illegal activity. The head of the landowner association says that foreign fishermen who have the parasite naturally in their home rivers do not think about it being a problem when they come to fish in Norway. – They have not disinfected their equipment, and we do not know where they come from. That is the great natural crime of bringing infection into the region again, says Olsborg. Harald Olsberg looks out over the Signaldal River. Photo: Mathias Sommerseth Kjellmo / news – For us it will be a fate worse than death. It will be a tragedy for the work we have been doing for eight years, he says. Pål Mugaas believes that there should be better marking along the rivers throughout the country, but especially those rivers that have a greater risk of infection than others. – The authorities must step in and make a better mark here. Good signage along the E6, where it crosses the pupils, is probably important. Those who fish in the river must disinfect their equipment. Roe from char, salmon and trout are prepared in the hatchery before being released into the Signaldal River. Photo: Mathias Sommerseth Kjellmo / news Working for a healthy river Two of the volunteers who have stood in the river are Randi and Bjørn Rognli. On this day, they walk around the river with waders and gloves up to their elbows and dig in the icy water. Roe boxes with char, trout and salmon from the hatchery near the river are buried in the river bed. Thanks to the fact that the original populations of wild salmon and char have been taken care of in the Norwegian Environment Agency’s gene banks, it has been possible to release them back into the rivers in the years following the rotenone treatments. Randi and Bjørn Rognli have helped put over 700 roe boxes in the Signaldal river. Photo: Mathias Sommerseth Kjellmo / news So far this year, the volunteers have put out 721 cans of roe from char, trout and salmon. – We are doing a job for the public, so that things will be good with fish eventually. That there will be fish for everyone, says Bjørn Rognli. The couple say it is a rewarding job. Randi is cautiously optimistic about the river’s future. – There are a lot of fry in the river. We are all optimists and we are betting that we will be able to keep the infection at bay. But she is also worried that the salmon parasite will return. – It is completely tragic if that happens. I can’t bear to think about it. We just have to hope that we manage to keep the river healthy. Randi Rognli hopes that the river will not again be infected by the salmon parasite. Photo: Mathias Sommerseth Kjellmo / news The parasite Gyrodactylus salaris The salmon parasite Gyrodactylus salaris is an approx. 0.5 mm parasite that attacks salmon fry in fresh water. Gyrodactylus salaris has been introduced to Norway through the importation of foreign salmon and rainbow trout at least four times. The parasite is the biggest man-made threat to Norwegian salmon stocks. Fighting the parasite therefore has a high priority. Extermination of the parasite also means that the risk of infection spreading to new areas is reduced. Gyrodactylus salaris has led to annual income losses in the order of NOK 200-250 million, which up to today has cost Norway three to four billion NOK. In Norway, G. salaris has been detected in a total of 51 watercourses distributed over 17 infection regions. Eradication measures against the parasite have significantly reduced its spread. Today, 42 watercourses have been declared healthy, one watercourse is awaiting a report of health after treatment and 8 watercourses remain infected – four in the Driva region and four in the Drammen region. Source: Norwegian Environment Agency
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The Signaldal river was declared healthy last year – now there is a fear of a new parasitic infection – news Troms and Finnmark
