Marc-Adrien has been one of NASF’s leading personalities in Europe for the last 20 years and is particularly active in salmon restoration projects in key areas in France. He has worked with Orri Vigfússon, Chairman of NASF in negotiations in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. He works on many projects with the French authorities and he is also a board member of the Association Internationale de Défense du Saumon Atlantique (AIDSA). His special expertise covers the management and stock assessment of wild salmon and eels in Europe. M. Marcellier has been NASF’s key negotiator in Bay of Biscay issues and in the ...]]> Marc-Adrien Marcellier, the French director of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, has been created a Knight of The National Order of Merit in recognition of more than 27 years of service to the French Nation in salmon and fishery causes.

Marc-Adrien has been one of NASF’s leading personalities in Europe for the last 20 years and is particularly active in salmon restoration projects in key areas in France. He has worked with Orri Vigfússon, Chairman of NASF in negotiations in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. He works on many projects with the French authorities and he is also a board member of the Association Internationale de Défense du Saumon Atlantique (AIDSA). His special expertise covers the management and stock assessment of wild salmon and eels in Europe.
M. Marcellier has been NASF’s key negotiator in Bay of Biscay issues and in the Loire Allier watershed. In recent years he was particularly involved in brokering the closure of dams in the Normandy region. He is a keen international angler, member of the Flyfishers’ Club, and fishes in Iceland, New Zealand, North America and Russia. In 2008 he was presented with the Order of the Falcon by the President of Iceland in Reykjavik. Marc-Adrien lives in Paris.

For years we have been successfully negotiating and funding commercial agreements that protect the feeding grounds and migration routes of salmon on the high seas, however Norway, in full contravention of International law, sadly continues to steal fish native to Russian rivers. Please see this special 4-minute video report in Russian.

We are determined to put a stop to this illegal plunder and threat to salmon and wondered if would help by forwarding this message to your contacts?

“We are very pleased with the support and gifts donated as well as the generous bids which were topped by NOK 140 000 for 2 days prime time fishing at the Alta River, says Mr. Gerhard Schive, leader of the organization. The income is well welcomed and will enable Redd Villaksen to contribute to several important national and international salmon and sea trout conservation programs. The ...]]> The Eight Auction Auction in Support of Wild Salmon in Norway this year was arranged in Oslo on October 25th. The Auction was a great success and did break all previous records. About 150 people attended, bidding on some 80 fishing opportunities and items, and the total net income this year did pass a whopping one million Norwegian kroner. The auction as usual took place at the previous Astrup Fearnley Museum for Modern Art.

“We are very pleased with the support and gifts donated as well as the generous bids which were topped by NOK 140 000 for 2 days prime time fishing at the Alta River, says Mr. Gerhard Schive, leader of the organization. The income is well welcomed and will enable Redd Villaksen to contribute to several important national and international salmon and sea trout conservation programs. The start up of Reddvillaksen was realized by funding from Orri Vigfusson, and we were all pleased that Orri did attended and inspire the attendants to keep up the good fighting for our precious wild Atlantic salmon.

www.reddvillaksen.no

The Lists of Lots (live and silent) are complete, but detailed descriptions are just presented for those lots we think are especially interesting for our foreign supporters. If you would like to get more info on some lots that are not presented in full, please contact us!

Date: September 20th 2012 – films start at 7.30pm.

Join us at the BAFTA theatre on the evening of September 20th and help support the NASF. Tickets cost £30 and are available now! Please click on the banner below…

The situation improved slightly in 2011, as was the case on most salmon waters throughout the North Atlantic region, but still the situation remains dire. The only significant run of salmon is on the Penobscot River, Maine, and that run averages 1,500 fish each year. There are some small rivers in the northernmost region of the state, Downeast Maine, that still have a few returning salmon to spawn. Their numbers are very small and below sustainability.

All that could soon change as NASF is proud to ...]]> Once upon a time the United States could boast of having rivers from the Canadian border all the way down to Long Island Sound with abundant runs of Atlantic salmon.  In 2010 the total run of  U.S.salmon, to but a handful of those rivers, was a mere 1,650 fish, less than 1% of the historic run..

The situation improved slightly in 2011, as was the case on most salmon waters throughout the North Atlantic region, but still the situation remains dire. The only significant run of salmon is on the Penobscot River, Maine, and that run averages 1,500 fish each year. There are some small rivers in the northernmost region of the state, Downeast Maine, that still have a few returning salmon to spawn. Their numbers are very small and below sustainability.

All that could soon change as NASF is proud to announce that it is working on a project to revive one of those small rivers, the East Machias, in partnership with a local grassroots conservation group, The Downeast Salmon Federation (DSF).

Using the DSF’s new hatchery on the banks of the river some 80,000 juvenile salmon are being grown to the parr stage for release in October this fall. This figure could rise to 400,000 over the next few years. The stocking work is based on methods used on the River Tyne in England by Peter Gray, manager of the Keilder Hatchery. Peter has been coaxed out of retirement to advise us on this project, so hopes are high that the success gained on the Tyne can be replicated on the East Machias, and possibly beyond in the future.

The East Machias looks to be a perfect laboratory in which to test these methods and build a meaningful run of salmon. This little river lies in a remote area about 30 miles from the border with Canada,  has reasonably good habitat including sizeable lakes along its lower course, and still gets a modest run of salmon.

Currently almost 12 million of the juvenile salmon stocked into U.S. rivers annually are fry that have just used up their yolk sacs. These feeble fish are put into frigid rivers in the spring where they must immediately find food or die. Statistics show that most die or are eaten by predators. By following Peter Gray’s methods and introducing our fish as 0+ parr in the fall their survival rate should increase considerably.

The Tyne was so badly polluted in the past that by the 1960s the river was virtually devoid of salmon. Peter Gray’s stocking methods for the river re-built the run and the Tyne is now the most productive salmon fishery in England & Wales. Last year saw a rod catch of 5,500, better than many rivers to the north in Scotland! It was a remarkable turnaround that we intend to emulate on the East Machias.

If you’d like more information about this project please send an email to NASF’s representative in the US,  John Ashton (jashton@hunton.com).  There is a lengthy Project Description with all the details we would be glad to send to you.

You might also be interested in a new book written by Peter Gray in which he explains his stocking approach and the success on the Tyne. Swimming Against the Tide  (Medlar Press, 2011),  It’s a fascinating book and can be ordered at www.medlarpress.com

The Thjórsá, the country‘s biggest river system, originates in the mighty Hofsjökull glacier in the middle of Iceland. It hosts Iceland´s biggest sustainable wild salmon stock and also holds brown trout, sea trout and some char. Nearly 90% of the natural fish habitat in the river lies above the Urridafoss waterfall and revolutionary changes were proposed to the flow of the river. NASF warned the government that this would create huge losses of habitat ...]]> The Icelandic Government has accepted NASF‘s objections to a new hydro-electric generating scheme on Iceland‘s biggest river and suspended the plans to build three dams to power generation plants.  NASF had urged the government to adopt a precautionary approach to proposals by Landsvirkjun, Iceland‘s biggest power company, to harness power from the river Thjorsá.  A proposal to this effect will now be presented to the Icelandic Parliament.

The Thjórsá, the country‘s biggest river system, originates in the mighty Hofsjökull glacier in the middle of Iceland. It hosts Iceland´s biggest sustainable wild salmon stock and also holds brown trout, sea trout and some char. Nearly 90% of the natural fish habitat in the river lies above the Urridafoss waterfall and revolutionary changes were proposed to the flow of the river. NASF warned the government that this would create huge losses of habitat and nursery areas for juvenile salmon.

Using taxpayers cash the power company, has invested heavily in the projects but had failed to fully assess the colossal damage to the natural environment that could be caused. It had also failed to consult with the river owners and merely cited the “Columbia and Snake rivers in the Northwest United States as evidence of their good intentions. Twenty years ago the river owners around Thjórsá negotiated a deal that provided them with a fish ladder at the Buda waterfall. It appears to be reasonably successful but many of the river owners say it is just a start to huge salmon enhancement activities envisoned for the whole river system.

Over the last decade or so Iceland river catches have doubled and trebled following the strict protection and enhancement schemes that progressive angling operators and river owners in Iceland have introduced. These include conservation deals in the marine environment, coastal nets buyouts, catch-&-release, carefully focused stocking projects and a variety of other innovative enhancment work.

Orri Vigfusson, chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (NASF)  says that schemes like the now-suspended Thjórsá plan should be an international issue and be related to climate changes. „ As glaciers shrink  the snow melt from which many rivers spring will reduce.  As sea levels rise, salination of the lower reaches will increase,„ he said.

Far from building new dams we need to accelerate their removal.  In the last ten years only 410 American dams were removed and there are 84,000 more. Demolishing big obstructions like hydro dams will improve natural river flows and the production of feed and oxygen for the fish, mammals and invertebrates that live in or around a river. Hopefully marine life will also stand to benefit.

In Maine, the 160-year-old Edward Dam was removed from the Kennebec River in 1999 and today the river boasts a thriving and diverse fishery. Undamming the Elwha river in Washington is expected to boost its salmon population from 3,000 to 400,000 and this will attract bears, eagles and other wildlife that thrived before the river dams were built in 1914.

NASF is currently supporting plans to remove dams obstructing wild salmon runs in the Sélune river in the Mont-Saint-Michel area of Normandy in France. It is also supporting an Atlantic Salmon Federation project to remove the dams on the Penobscot river in Maine that would open up a thousand miles of new salmon habitat.

In submitting its biological and environmental assessment, NASF sought the advice of Dr Margaret Filardo, Fishery Biologist and Michele DeHart, Manager of the Fish Passage Center in Oregon. A host of Icelandic experts including the Thórsá river board have advised and participated in the NASF assessment of this project.

„We now need a few years to explore the real opportunities the Thórsá river system can offer,“ Orri Vigfusson said. „Our focus will be on the salmon stocks and we shall use the vast expertise our worldwide teams have amassed over the last 20 years. We hope to develop a master plan for a massive salmon enhancement programme throughout this uniquely productive water system. Simultaneously we shall need to develop angling programmes and encourage eco-tourism and a host of other projects that will create new jobs and new income revenues for the local population that live beside this huge river.“