DOI: 10.14466/cefasdatahub.166
title: England and Wales salmon fisheries: provisional statistics 2024

description: Provisional data from England and Wales on the status of salmon stocks and fisheries for the 2024 season, submitted to the International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) for the purpose of contributing to ICES’ international stock assessments and development of annual advice to the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO). Updated data for the 2023 season are also provided as well as past records for the time series data and model run data going back as far as 1971.

Some of these data are also provided to NASCO around the same time, for annual reporting purposes.

These national-level provisional data are provided by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales.

More detailed information will be reported when the 2024 data have been finalised, as part of the series of annual publications, e.g. Salmon Stocks and Fisheries in England and Wales 2023 and Assessment of Salmon Stocks and Fisheries in England and Wales.

The annual assessment of stocks and fisheries is carried out early in each year so that data can be collated and analysed in time for the annual meeting of the ICES Working Group on North Atlantic Salmon (WGNAS), which normally meets in March, and supports the ICES Advice which is required ahead of the annual NASCO meeting in early June. The salmon catch data for the most recent year are always deemed provisional at this time. The data for nets and fixed engines are usually based on complete returns from netters and only require final validation. These data are thus typically subject to little, if any, subsequent change. Rod catch data, on the other hand, are based upon those returns received until an agreed cut-off date, usually early-February. While these data are largely complete, they are usually subject to some revision for late returns and final checking.

An account of the way in which these data have been generated and compiled prior to 2025 is provided in the Assessment of Salmon Stocks and Fisheries in England and Wales, and Annex 5 describes how ICES uses these national data. At WGNAS 2025, annual estimates of the total number of returns of one-sea-winter and multi-sea-winter salmon to fresh water in UK (England & Wales) since 1994 were provided directly for inclusion in the Run-Reconstruction Model. These annual return estimates were in the form of the sum and standard errors on the natural log scale, both derived from data compiled from rivers. Returns to homewaters for UK (England & Wales) over this time period are now derived by adding the annual coastal waters commercial catches to the freshwater returns. Data for prior to 1994 are generated and compiled as in previous years.

These data have been compiled jointly by staff from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) Salmon and Freshwater Team and fisheries personnel from the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales/Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru (NRW/CNC). The monitoring and assessment of salmon stocks is funded by Defra and Welsh Government. Thanks to the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust for data relating to the River Frome.