The restoration of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) in Poland

Abstract

The last remaining salmon population in Poland went extinct in the mid 1980s. The salmon restoration program in Poland in based on Daugava salmon, and the first eyed Daugava salmon eggs were imported to Poland in 1985, and they continued to be imported in subsequent years. Spawners were reared in net cages in the Gulf of Gdańsk. Salmon smolts have been released into Pomeranian rivers and the Vistula River since 1994. Between 1994 and 1999, 1,644,936 salmon smolts were released, of which 63,602 were tagged. Overall, there was a low recovery rate of tagged specimens, and from many experiments there were no recoveries at all. The highest recovery rate was 4.5%. Tagged salmon migrated throughout the Baltic Sea, but the highest concentration of catches were in the Gulf of Gdańsk, near Bornholm and in the Gulf of Finland. In the first winter, the tagged salmon attained an average length of 62.9 cm and an average weight of 2.9 kg, in the second winter theses figures were 76.1 cm and 5.3 kg, and in the third they were 90.7 cm and 7.6 kg.