Sea Trout (Salmo trutta subsp. trutta)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vertebrate > bony fish (Actinopterygii) > Fish |
| Red List Status: | Vulnerable (Not Relevant) [VU(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 trutta subsp. trutta |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Linnaeus, 1758 |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Nunn et al., 2023 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | Brown/Sea Trout (Salmo trutta) is listed separately. |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Vulnerable in England. A 39% reduction in angling catches of the anadromous form (sea trout) over three generations. |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Targeted habitat restoration & monitoring required. Improved evidence base needed to inform fishery management practices. Sea trout also need to be protected within both marine and freshwater life stages. |
| 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: | Threatened by barriers to migration, poor water quality, predation, marine exploitation, and climate change. Need migratory passage. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 5. Remedial action identified |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Combination - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | For Brown/Sea Trout, refer to the entry for Salmo trutta. Pressures outside England, policy conflict - fishing. Required: improved fishery management (controls on stocking) and exploitation control. Some rivers still support healthy populations. Juvenile trout populations are generally acceptable indicating that the main pressure on sea trout exists in the inshore marine environment. Owing to their preferred habitat of shallow inshore coastal areas, sea trout are more prone to localised issues – e.g. inshore coastal netting, which can result in reduced marine survival. Sea trout in England have a range of different life history strategies and this must be taken into account in defining suitable management strategies. |
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:
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: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: A secured and spatially extensive long-term monitoring programme to adequately assess trends in all life stages of sea trout, 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.