Word: salmone
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...British government appears to think so. Last month the National Water Council, which represents regional water authorities in England and Wales, issued its grimmest report ever on the state of the salmon. Illegal catches-the council refrained from using the word poaching-have become so heavy that in some areas they are double the legal catch. Even though the government is spending $4 million annually on a force of 245 water bailiffs to combat illegal fishing in English and Welsh rivers, the salmon may face extinction...
...reasons are largely economic. Any enterprising poacher can easily earn $750 a night by netting, poisoning, gaffing or otherwise coaxing salmon out of British streams and selling them for $3 per lb., more for the choicest steaks, to restaurants. Nick Sanders, manager of the Cothi Bridge Hotel about six miles east of Carmarthen in south Wales, is one of the few restaurateurs willing to admit as much. "If the fish comes in at a reasonable price, I'll buy it," he says. "Poaching has always gone on in Wales. It's like kids bobbing for apples." The penalty...
...retired mechanic and sometime poacher from St. Clears, Wales, who was taught the art at the age of eight by his father: "I love poaching. It's a sport. I know where the fish hides, in the deep pools at the banks underneath the roots. I tickle the salmon. He thinks I'm playing with him, which makes me sad because once I touch him he won't move. I slip the rabbit snare over his tail and jerk him out of the water. But as I get older, I find the fish looking...
...poaching has become a growth industry, taken over by gangs who shanghai salmon the way more conventional bandits rob banks. Today's poachers use radio-equipped lookouts to check for water bailiffs, sophisticated systems of decoy cars to deploy their forces and middlemen to market their take. The object: big catches, swiftly and efficiently distributed. The only weapon the government men have is a truncheon, which, under antiquated rules, can be drawn only in self-defense. The poachers, meanwhile, sport a growing assortment of weapons...
...proposed solution is a salmon-tagging stratagem similar to one used successfully in Canada. Legally caught salmon are tagged by the head or tail. Anyone-fisherman, merchant, even restaurateur-who handles an untagged fish could be liable to a sizable fine...