25th March: Most detailed long-term study in the world provides science to support Scottish salmon recovery

Six decades of ecological monitoring on a stream close to King Charles’ Deeside home is providing the science needed for the fight to preserve one of Scotland’s keystone species.

Atlantic salmon have long been identified as a threatened species because they need marine and freshwater habitats during their complex lifecycle and both are being affected by climate change.

To gain a greater understanding of this lifecycle, fish traps were installed in the Girnock Burn in Royal Deeside in 1966 to monitor this salmon population.

Now a research paper led by the University of Aberdeen and published in Hydrological Processes has highlighted the insights from long-term monitoring at the site—which is sandwiched between the Royal Estates of Birkhall and Balmoral, within the Cairngorms National Park.