River Dee salmon smolts phase 4

This programme of work continues UOS partnership project with River Dee Trust, Dee District Salmon Fishery Board, 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 smolt phase 3 pilot project (1971590) in April 2026 100 wild salmon smolts collected from the River Muick, by River Dee Trust staff. will be PIT tagged , have a tissue sample taken for genetic analysis and then transported to MERL. Here they will be held in the isolation unit tanks and treated as stock fish and reared to maturity (up to 2.5 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 of that year . Upon leaving MERL 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 .