Atlantic salmon return to Mid Wales 'for the first time in decades'

The Wye and Usk Foundation says for the first time in decades, juvenile Atlantic salmon have been recorded in a section of the River Elan in mid-Wales.

The discovery follows a three-year initiative by the Foundation, along with partners Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water and Natural Resources Wales, to restore the ecology of 7km of the Wye tributary downstream of the Elan Valley dams.

Completed in 1905, the dams cut off the natural source of riverbed gravels to the lower Elan while the river’s existing gravels have steadily been washed away. This had resulted in an ‘unnatural’ river, devoid of the sediments required for aquatic life to thrive.

2,300 tonnes of new gravel has been introduced to the Elan just below Caban Coch over the past two years.

Initial surveys in 2017 showed a recovery of invertebrates in the newly gravelled areas. This was followed by eyewitness reports of adult salmon spawning last winter.

Last month, electrofishing surveys (a specialised method of counting the number of young fish) confirmed the presence of salmon and brown trout fry just downstream of Elan Village. The Foundation says this is the first time they have been recorded there since monitoring began in the early 1970s and shows that adult fish had used the new gravel to spawn successfully. Monitoring further down the Elan also showed a large increase in salmon numbers this year.