Migratory Fishes | Atlantic Salmon

History

Historical Stocks in Germany

Just 100 years ago most of the German rivers were populated with large numbers of Atlantic Salmon.

Every year they migrated up to lay their eggs into the gravel beds of streams and rivers.

People of that time were able to fish great numbers of Salmon for food without endangering the sustainability of the stocks.

On our Wanderfische Internet Database you can find historic evidence and get an impression of how rich the stocks were at the time.

In Fulda near Kassel for example a fisher caught 798 Salmon on the 5th of June 1443 with a single pull of his net.

At the end of the 19th century on the fishmarket in Rotterdam/Netherlands 40.000 to 80.000 Rhine Salmon were sold annually.

Salmon was extinct!

Since around 1950 the Atlantic Salmon was extinct in Germany!

Water pollution and River Regulation had killed the proud fish.

A few decades of human activity left nothing more of the abundant stocks and the wild rivers than concrete sewage channels without fish.

The "King of Fishes" and his entourage of many small and big water creatures have died quietly and just disappeared.