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An Epic Migration

At the Trust’s Salmon and Trout Research Centre on the River Frome, near Wareham in Dorset, every spring, scientists catch and tag young salmon (smolts) as they swim down river and go out to sea through Poole Harbour.

For the first time we now have a record of a Frome fish on its epic migratory journey to the North Atlantic.  On 6 October 2009 one of our fish was recorded at a Fish Market in Sisimuit on the west coast of Greenland.  The fish was picked up during a sampling programme organised by the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO).  The fish was 67.9 cm in length and weighed 4.2 kg.  The fish swam past our smolt detection equipment on the night of 24 April 2008 where Bill Beaumont (Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust) and Al Cook (Cefas) were on duty tagging fish.  The fish had spent a year in the river before emigrating out to sea and was estimated as being 14.9 cm long.  By October 2009, our fish had grown over 50 cm in length over the 500 plus days it had spent at sea.  The distance between Wareham (UK) and Sisimuit is 2070 miles or 3332 kilometres.  Because it was caught in late 2009, this fish would have been destined to be a multi-sea winter fish rather than a grilse, had it successfully made the return journey to Dorset.

Although this is only our first fish to be detected, this is the first evidence that fish from the River Frome and presumably other south coast rivers feed off the coast of Greenland.

Find out more about our fisheries research.