Salmon fishery boards have joined forces with the country's canoeists to try to prevent a deadly parasite entering Scottish waters.
It is feared the gyrodactylus salaris (Gs) parasite could devastate salmon stocks and have a major impact on the economy with angling and canoeing suffering along with the whisky, paper and bottled water industries, which rely on fresh water.
The Association of Salmon Fishery Boards (ASFB) and Scottish Canoe Association (SCA) want a high-profile campaign at ports and airports to raise awareness of the threat from the Gs parasite, which has already devastated stocks of Atlantic salmon in Norwegian rivers.
The two organisations say although the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department is taking the issue seriously and their own organisations give advice for anglers and canoeists on how to avoid accidentally importing Gs into this country, more effort should be made, especially by English agencies, to tighten defences.
The ASFB and SCA would like to see: clear information about Gs at ferry ports and airports; leaflets and posters on ferries linking the UK to Scandinavia; and greater effort being made at Westminster to encourage agencies to spread the message across the rest of the British Isles.
Mike Dales, SCA access and environment officer, said: "We are doing all we can to raise awareness of the issue among canoeists and to recommend ways of disinfecting.
"It concerns us that anyone travelling overseas, especially to Norway where many paddlers go each summer, will not pick up this message at the ferry terminal or on the ferry if they hadn't learned about it before they left home. We are concerned that the authorities are not responding with sufficient urgency.
Andrew Wallace, ASFB director, added: "Gs is the single greatest threat salmon stocks in Scotland have ever faced. It is vital that every conceivable effort is made to prevent its introduction.
"It concerns us greatly that the ferry, port and airport interests do not appear to be taking sufficient precautions."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article