Atlantic salmon populations are in severe decline across their range. The welfare of wild salmon individuals is inseparable from the health of river catchments that support their lifecycle.
Wild salmon welfare is expressed at both individual and population levels. Individual salmon struggling to ascend thermally stressed rivers, burdened with sea lice, or blocked by migration barriers experience physiological stress. At population level, the collapse of once-abundant runs represents ecological and welfare failure at massive scale. River restoration addresses both the welfare of individual fish and the conservation of populations that have declined to levels insufficient to sustain viable breeding.