Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vertebrate > bony fish (Actinopterygii) > Fish |
| Red List Status: | Endangered (Not Relevant) [EN(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Salmo salar |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Linnaeus, 1758 |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Nunn et al., 2023 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Continuing population size reduction in England. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Salmon management depends on adequate long-term monitoring to maintain time series. The protection of returning adults to maximise spawning potential and success is a key priority coupled with a need to ensure the protection and availability of suitable habitat in freshwater for all stages of the life cycle. Access to and from spawning grounds for adults and smolts is particularly important as this can significantly reduce in-river mortality. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Impacted by water quality, climate change, habitat loss, degradation, fragmentation, predation and over exploitation. Need migratory passage. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 5. Remedial action identified |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Combination or other (detail in comments) |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Combination - sufficient |
| Species Comments: | Pressures outside England. Policy conflict - open net salmon farming in Scotland; also angling. Immigration is not relevant for salmon restorations as populations have evolved to be genetically distinct reflecting the environmental conditions within specific rivers. As evidenced on recovering rivers, salmon populations can recover given suitable habitat protection (good water quality, suitable flows and temperature, removal of barriers, clean and suitably sized spawning gravels ) that provides adult salmon the opportunity to spawn successfully. Marine bycatch (Mackerel / Herring fisheries in the North Atlantic) may also be a pressure and therefore a policy conflict. Predation pressure may also be more significant than previously thought. Other key limiting factors including degradation of instream habitats due to diffuse and point-source pollution and physical habitat degradation must be rectified by wider habitat restoration actions. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Undertake prioritised and targeted barrier removal or easement to deliver longitudinal connectivity across freshwater habitats and unhindered migratory passage for smolts and returning adults.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Pressure mitigation
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites: 18 SACs that have Salmon as named qualifying species
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Review available evidence and undertake research of fishery management practices within both marine and freshwater habitats. This may include practices such as stocking, rearing and exploitation to inform conservation actions.
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites: 18 SACs that have Salmon as named qualifying species
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: A secured and spatially extensive long-term monitoring programme to adequately assess trends in all life stages of Atlantic salmon, allowing the greatest pressures acting on the population to be identified and conservation actions to be prioritised.
Action targets: 3. National Monitoring Plan agreed and implemented
Action type: Targeted monitoring
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
Comments:
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.