The Decline of the Baltic salmon

Across The UK, local heroes are fighting to protect our rivers. Now there's a new way to help, the Ori. A brand new award from North Atlantic Salmon Fund UK, honoring the legendary salmon conservationist Ori Vigverson and offering up to £10,000 in match funding as well as expert support to double the impact. Apply by October 17. It's quick and easy.

Visit NASF UK's website and I'll be joining the team to decide which projects we award this year. Best of luck. Just a few years ago, the Baltic salmon were thriving, with huge numbers of fish running the pristine waters of Sweden. Once thought to be on the brink, the salmon bounced back and were being celebrated as a success story. However, something drastic has changed and the Baltics are once again in decline.

Emily Bjorkman and Lars Munk are fanatical salmon anglers who've committed their life to the cause. They needed to find out what was causing the salmon's acute demise, documenting it in a new film called Free Falling. Emily and Lars join me on this episode of the Lars Salmon to talk about the significance of the Baltic salmon, how their hopes for the fish have been badly hit, and what they intend to do about it.

I am very fortunate to be friend with, like, Lars and Monk, we fish a lot together. And we have, like, experienced, like, the good years with Baltic salmon and the fantastic runs. You know? And, like, almost more than two years ago, we sat we saw, like, a really bad, like, decline of the salmon, you know, and felt like we need to do something. We decided that we wanna make a movie about it because of declining salmon and why it's happening and what can we do.

And, like, we feel a bit panic. You know? So but, I mean, no one of us is, like, biologists or working with this. We're just fly fisher who love salmon. So and to be honest, we didn't even want to do a fin free falling.

It's more like a necessary evil, if you call it like that. But, I mean, what can we do when when it's all it feels almost like fishing empty rivers now.

Can you just clarify exactly what Baltic salmon means and the geography that they inhabit?

It used to be an Atlantic salmon, just like the ones we got in the North Atlantic. And during the ice age, it got landlocked in the Baltic. Once the ice age disappeared some, what, nine thousand years ago or so, they just decided not to go back into the Atlantic. And since that, they've been Baltics. They are quite cool.

I mean, if you look at the salmon, the species itself, they really are that different from the Atlantic, but the sort of main things, if you compare them to Norwegian Atlantic salmon or Icelandic or Russian for that matter, they do travel a lot further upstream into the rivers. The rivers here are some of the Swedish rivers are massive. When we look at at my home river here, Toner River, which has the tributary of Lyne, Tadand, and Monya River, the the salmon who goes all the way up to the tundra, they're traveling somewhere between three hundred and four hundred kilometers just in the river. And then you add on another, I don't know, fifteen, sixteen, 1,700 kilometers at sea from the area where they feed and grow in in the in the nowhere in the lower or southern parts of the Baltic Sea close to to Rugen in Germany.

Do you think that's why they are of size like they are? Because from what I gather and from your your fantastic film, it seems that they're all, well, a lot of them are a proper specimen fish. They they look stunning.

Yeah. It might have something to do with it. But, I mean, if we if if we look in the history books, we used to have big big salmon pretty much everywhere, even in the Atlantic Rivers. Some rivers maybe had more grills and medium size, but they have been spread out. They, of course, have disappeared over decades.

We've been fortunate enough to still have some really good solid stocks of big fish running. A lot of the smalls in in these big Baltic rivers, they also tend to stay a year long in the river, meaning that they are often bigger when they come back, and we do have multi winter spawners returning, of course. But I would say up here in these vast yeah, the bigger rivers, salmon over 110 is not uncommon at all. And we are claiming, I think it's actually me who's claiming it in the film that in modern days, the question is if there's been much better rivers, honestly. I mean, we've seen fishing where a whole group of friends in in in the morning have caught fish over a 110 with some over a 120 centimeters, which is it's it's ridiculous when you think of it because on on the other hand, we're still fishing a river that's between, what, a 180 to three fifty meters wide making tweed look like yeah.

I'm not gonna say a ditch because it's still a relatively big river but you know what I am.

Yeah that's interesting that you've got this beautiful big river and yet that you've got the demise, the decline like any other Atlantic salmon, know, subspecies. The numbers the numbers are dwindling. We'll come back to that in just a second. I just have to ask you. I mean, you live way up there, way up north, Lapland.

What is that like for a salmon fisherman that far north? How much dedication do you have to put in? How much suffering from the cold do you have to endure?

Quite a lot. Last year, we had roughly, what was it, eight and a half months with snow and frost. In 2024, we had an early winter coming in and a late spring. So you have to endure a lot of winter. But I mean, it is what it is.

I love my salmon fishing. It's this thing that sort of got me rooted here. The fishing brought me here, but I got rooted here due to the salmon fishing and local culture. I don't know. I think we're all different.

I mean, I used to travel a little bit, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. That's sort of always been my sort of place to travel. But nowadays, I'm honestly, I'm not that bothered about the traveling. I'd rather want to fish at home. Of course, there's still bucket list things I would like to do, but it's not like I'm envious of those who are traveling a lot and fishing a lot because they quite often do not live close to any good fishing anyway.

That's probably the reason why they tend to travel, where I can throughout our ninety day season, season is June, July, August, I can go down whenever I want. I don't have to I have don't have to prebook. I don't have to decide six months ahead which week I'm gonna fish. I'm gonna go down when these conditions are good.

That's a luxury few of us can can claim.

Ah, for sure.

I get it. I get it. Emily, so the first film speaking about Home Rivers, picking up on your point there, Lars. Home Rivers Recycled. Tell us tell tell the listeners a little bit about that movie and what inspired you to make that.

It's like the first film we did. And, oh, I mean, that that was the, like, the good days. And what we really want to do films about, you know, about, like, the best salmon fishing here in Northern Sweden. The thing is, so I started to fish of the salmon when we had the good years with good runs. And and so me and Ted Lugart, the the filmmaker, we decided that we want to do a film about, like, the great great return of the Baltic salmon.

Because in the early eighties, '90, salmon was almost like extinct. And from that time, they came back in good numbers, and and I think it came out great. And I mean

That production, Emily and Ted, they focused, of course, on the fishing and then Emily's story. I mean, growing up only wanting to fish really. It was our success story. It was I mean, me and Ted, we worked quite a lot together. We worked in these huge regional projects where a lot of our focus since 2015 has been on the fishing.

A lot of folks, I mean and I don't know if you guys have heard anything about the salmon fishing north of the Polar Circle prior to 2015. I would say a lot of people haven't. So we spent a lot of years trying to promote and actually tell people how good it was here. And that whole situation sort of got woven into the story that Ted and Emily wanted to do with Home Rivers Recycled. And Emily is right.

I mean, was good years in the '90s, but prior to that, you had good years after the war due to mines still floating around in the Baltic. Then the commercialized fishing started, it skyrocketed down nearly instinct in the 80s. You had two good years, '96, '97, where they banned some of the fishing at sea. After that, it plummeted again. Then in the new year between 2012 and 2013, they decided on banning all DriftNets in the Baltic.

And all of a sudden, like a snap with the fingers, we had good runs. A year after they banned long line fishing because you saw a lot of fishing vessels, they would then change to long line fishing instead. Then they banned that as well, and we had some really good success with that management program. With that said, good things have been done, but we are still seeing a huge decline now, which is really, really worrying. And I think we have different factors we can point at and say that these are some of the reasons, but I haven't heard anyone yet to say ex explicit what it is.

But we know we do have, like, a good handful of things we could do to actually change the future.

Emily, watching you in these films, you come across as somebody like me, like many listeners, I'm sure, who has like Lars, who has the bug, who you're an addict. You're you're salmon obsessed. You live and breathe salmon angling and salmon conservation. How did that come about?

It's hard to just, like, point, it should be that. You know? But I I come from a family where we both my mom and dad fish have fished a lot.

Could just for the listeners and for me, actually, whereabouts do you live, and is it the same place where you were brought up?

Oh, yeah. So I live, like, more in the North middle part of Sweden. So I have how far away am I from you, Lars? 100?

Yeah, you're about a thousand kilometers.

Thousand kilometers, yeah. South. Yeah, South of Lars.

Tropical tropical Sweden.

Yeah. Kind of. We we have pretty the same weather and snow and like that, but we don't have the salmon fishing. We have, like, dams everywhere. We used to have salmon fishing here, but it's dams and things everywhere.

So you have to go further north to find the salmon fishing. So for me, I mean, I started with, like, I took extra classes in high school with fly tying and fly fishing, and and then I went to guiding school. And around that time, I got my, like, first silvery Baltic salmon in a really small, like, wild salmon river, a forest river, you know, so it's pretty small. And, I mean, from that time, I just knew, like like a person say in the film, it it feels like it's a fish from another planet. So since then, I've been totally hooked into salmon.

And just, you know, to be in that environment, fish twenty four seven, and just drive all the, like, what do you call gravel robes in the midnight sun, and you only eat sausage and just yeah. So it it feels like it's yeah. That's where where you feel like you're actually living.

What do you do for the other nine months of the year, Emily?

Like all the salmon angler, I type flies. I maybe do some travel to, like, get some kind of fishing somewhere somewhere else. You you write articles. You you see all the fishing films and, you know, just surviving the the winter the the long winter. It's it's like more it's It's like a hibernation

in some way. And making documentaries, and making wonderful documentaries, let's not forget that. And what about you Lars?

Well, I've done everything that Emily mentioned, but I would say with age, I sort of also knew I needed something else in my life. Fishing was everything. That's why I'm sitting here today really. But I needed something else to sort of fill. I've worked with fishing professionally for fifteen years, run my own company, two different salmon camps up here.

So I found hunting, which has sort of given me another huge interest, but where it's not I don't really work with it. It's my own thing. I do a lot of hunting in the winter. Don't tie flies anymore. I am fed up with it.

I got good friends who can tie for me, and then I might have to help them with some meat or venison. No. The hunting has been a really, really big thing for me.

Great. It's it's inspiring to hear about these analog lifestyles that that other salmon anglers lead and bartering for meat for flies. It's great. So I'm guessing then if your both of your lives are so intertwined with angling and you dedicate so much of your of your spare time to it, it must be particularly depressing in recent years, the the decline of the salmon, like it is for all of us. But it it feels like, and correct me if I'm wrong, Emily, it's been very acute in a very short period of time, the demise.

I know that Home Rivers Recycled was only shot, what, two years ago, three years ago? Yeah. And that felt a lot more hopeful as far as numbers are concerned than than free falling. That's a big drop off in a very short period of time. We've had the same issues, give or take.

The the lines are are similar. The graph looks similar, certainly, to Scottish salmon, I know, and and Irish salmon too, and English salmon definitely.

How do you feel about that? We didn't want to do this documentary. We just want to be in the life that we love, you know, fishing for salmon. But because in Home River, we said that we want to revisit this story in twenty five years. But with this declining, we felt like we have to do something.

So between the two and the five, we put a dot, and we revisit this story in two and a half years.

It was sort of our love story to salmon fishing. And it would be amazing to do like a twenty five years later with Emily's kids out with Emily and fishing. All that was sort of what we were seeing in front of us. I mean, it was really clear, but take River, I can't do the numbers for all of them. But Tawna River, we had an average of about 65,000 spawners a year in average.

Best year is just over 100,000 in the river. And in two years, our average has gone from 65,000 to 22 with two runs. I mean, we we are missing two thirds two years in a row. And I get it. You have fluctuations, and and that's often what I won't say all of our scientists, but a lot of scientists, a lot of politicians will tell us it's natural fluctuations.

I don't believe that. I I don't believe it for a second, not when it's massive like that. Just personally, I can't answer for Emily. But last year on my behalf, I got super depressed. After, I don't know, two and a half week, maybe three of fishing in June, I didn't want to be at the river.

But I also realized we work a little bit like shrinks for each other. So me, Emily, and and Ted, we'll call each other, like, weekly and daily at some point some some weeks. But you needed to talk about this with your friends to understand you. And, actually, I landed in it doesn't really matter how shitty the fishing is becoming or we need to be at the river. Yeah.

It cannot only be about catching a salmon when we're there. We all know that. It should not be about that. Of course, we want to. That's the dream.

That's the expectations. But we need to be there because we need to give them a voice.

The panic we feel as fly fisher and also, like, with human beings and but also with the information from the great people being in the film, so you get the educational part of it. But but I also hope it gives some kind of, like, a glimpse of hope because this is a big community, and and we felt after we released the film, there's many people that feel the same for the salmon and and that the community is big and strong.

We're a big voice, and we need to we need to be heard. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Help me understand the conservation angle that and the state the rivers are in. Just paint the picture for me, Lars, if you will.

So first of all, do you still have two runs? You have two runs. Do you spring run and a back end run or a a grills run, would it be, a and a spring salmon run?

Climate has changed even here, maybe maybe more here than than other places. I moved here into the Toner River Valley in 02/2004. Yep. Back then, we would get a we would get a proper spring flood from what we would call the highlands or or the tundra, and then we would get a midsummer

That's right.

Flood. In between there, we would get the first run of big fish early June until mid June. Then we we would get more medium sized fish, big runs of medium sized fish from around midsummer, which is somewhere June. They would run until on yeah. Maybe mid mid July.

And after that, we would see more grills coming. That was sort of a one year fish, meaning that they can be every everything from, yeah, a regular grill size all the way up to maybe close to four kilos. But what we're seeing now is that our our main flood or that spring flood has been combined with our midsummer flood. We are seeing more often that it's just one flood nowadays. It melts here during the same time it melts up in on the tundra on the highlands, which is that's pretty worrying in itself because we used to be able to rely on cold water in the June with that second flood, which we're not seeing in the same manner anymore.

What kind of temperatures are you looking at in July for the sake of example?

I would say average we are below 18 degree. Does it creep

above? Above 18.

Oh, yeah. Sure.

Does it?

Maybe not every year, but maybe 65% of of the time or the years, it it really does. And we're sort of in it's it's good and bad. I mean, we live quite far north, so you would expect us to have cold summers, but we don't. We actually have really nice summers. We normally have the most we're competing about the most sun hours with Gotland

That's true.

The island of Sweden. And they say it has something to do with the the high pressure that can build over the the Russian tundra that sweeps in, and then we can have, like, plus 30 degrees Celsius for two, three, four weeks. And that in combination with midnight sun, where you don't really get any shade, it warms up really, really quickly.

What about the restoration in freshwater? Are you similar to what we're doing here in The UK and the and the levers that we can control restoration, trying to create ideal spawning grounds and and nursery habitats so that we can create as many fat smolt as we possibly can. It's a numbers game, isn't it? It's a throwback out in into your case, into the Baltic to combat whatever's going on out there. Do you feel that you're on top of that when it comes to the freshwater habitat for the salmon?

I would say we're on top of it maybe to 80 degrees 80%. Right. We have a huge project in the Torna River system now together with Finland, a European finance project. It's worth close to €20,000,000. It runs over seven years.

They're gonna go through most of the main tributaries, and this is after the flooding. We used to flood timber here. Right? So some of our rivers and and especially the smaller creeks, not the main rivers, but smaller creeks and territories, they've been straightened out. So they're gonna restore or get them back to to their original ways.

But even with that as a problem, our systems are so massive and huge that they have always been spawning grounds. Of course, we'll open up for more, but there was a local politician here who actually said something really bright during the summer. We had our royalties up here talking about the project. And and luckily, he he he got the the last word, and he said, well, it's really good that we're doing something for for the freshwater, the habitat, but without salmon surviving in the sea, it doesn't really matter how much we do up up in our rivers.

Yeah. It's that age old analogy, isn't it? You can you can have the best party. You can create the best party in the world, but you're not gonna get any guests if there's no one to invite. So interesting.

And and and I guess that puts you ahead of us way ahead of us in your restoration. If yours if you're if you think 80% is 80% there, that's pretty healthy.

And it hasn't really I mean, these river are national rivers. So, like, take the Carlex and Torna River. They're national rivers. You cannot put a dam in them. There's never been a dam put in any of these.

So they are already protected. But the ditching that's been done for the forestry, that that is some of the things that we can do now. It's not gonna, like, make the salmon stock explode with great numbers. We still need the spawners back. That's the main issue.

We do have spawning grounds. We'll get more, but we do have quite enough.

You're in a quite unique situation that as far as the Atlantic salmon is concerned. You you have these wonderful rivers, big, cold, clean rivers that that they need to spawn. But your issue is then you're not getting the returning numbers. You're not getting the returning spoiners. No.

So what's going on? What what in your opinions as anglers I'm gonna start with you, Emily. What's going on out in the Baltic Sea that is stopping these these spawning fish returning? I mean, obviously, there's not just one thing, as we know, but but what is it? What are the top three culprits?

It's a complex issue because you have the climate changes. You have, like, large scale commercial fishing for sprout and herring, and, of course, the bycatchers from that, and the coastal fishing, and and everything happening out in the sea. But I think these things have been happening for a really long time. So why the drastic change now? I don't think anyone really knows that.

We don't know that. But we'd really hope that we could do some more scientists and get the smart people out there to figure this out.

No. But I agree with Emily. I mean, we have industrial trollers that we know are catching sprout and and herring, which are going to the Norwegian farms with which none of us likes anyway. That whole industry is is fucking up our ecosystem everywhere. I I think one of the the really big issues that we have is that we still see the salmon as a resource, which I know we should in some way.

Don't get me I mean, we know what what a resource the the salmon can be on River Tweed or Spee or Dee, even here. I mean, tourism can bloom. We can do catch and release. We can do it long term sustainable. But when we see it as a resource in the sea, it always ends.

Meaning that we we can't really do commercialized fishing catch and release, can we? And and when when they use I mean, in the European Union for the Baltic Sea, they're using the MSY, meaning that the goal is to to have the rivers like the Torna River and Colleges River and the others to produce 80% of smalt for the sea a year. That that's sort of their goal. We want to be somewhere around 75, 80% of what the rivers can produce in smold. The management system is not based on returners.

It's based on how much smold we can spit out into the sea. And that shows me as as a fisherman and and a caring individual for salmon, then it's only to harvest. When we're not looking at returning spawners, I mean, they should be the ones we are counting in the management system. We should be able to say that if, like, a river like Tornur, if there's not 40,000 salmon who's past the counter, nothing can be killed that year. Nothing.

I mean, then then all of a sudden, we're managing it. But but as it is now, I mean, we are still trying to get get catch and release to to become bigger here. I mean, the fishing up here, we are if you look at it development wise, we haven't done tourism for that long up here. And most of the fishing for salmon in these huge rivers are still done the old way, like harling, you know, with but with lures. A lot of fish are being killed by sport fishing.

That that we can restrict. That we can actually do something with quite quickly. We had meetings this fall where I would say 90% of everyone we talked to are positive to restrict the numbers and go forward with more much more catch and release. But we we need those spawners back in the system to actually know what we're dealing with. And and, I mean, I've been sitting in different management groups for over ten years, and and I've actually heard scientists say one year that the maximum capacity of spawners in Torna River is 40%.

Then the year after, we'll see 52,000 salmon. Then they'll just rise it to, well, the maximum capacity for the river is 55,000. The year after, we get 80. So I mean, there's sort of no realistic hopes and expectations. I mean, some of the scientists we are talking to, especially in the first movie, Ted and Emily, that they're estimating a quarter of a million, maybe even more spawners should be able to return a year.

That's the capacity of the river and the spawning beds. And and and it seems like our politicians and and some scientists are quite happy with with about 20 or 40,000 salmon returning.

Politicians seldom make the right decision, but I'm guessing this is to do with the commercial value of the fisheries out in the Baltic Sea being far more valuable to them than the returning Baltic salmon to the rivers. Is that the brutal truth of it? Yeah. I would say yes. So to reconcile that because it it it's a one, isn't it?

You and I and and Emily and Dara and anybody listening, it's a no brainer. Atlantic salmon are on the are on the demise, and we need to save them, and and it's happening frighteningly quickly. So let's just stop everything that we can in order to to to help with that. But those that aren't quite as passionate about these fish will argue, well, the the Swedish economy, a huge part of their revenue comes from commercial, from the fish, from the commercial fisheries out in the Baltic. A lot of people are working, on those fisheries.

It's a big industry. So what does it matter about a few thousand salmon? Salmon are resilient. Salmon are probably cyclical. Salmon have been here for millions of years before us.

I'm not saying that you agree with that argument, and I certainly don't, but you can see where they're coming from. So what's the middle ground if we have to compromise?

I think a good place to start is if we want to look at that as a resource and as a economy carrier, you have to look at the total picture. And we're not doing that when it comes to salmon caught by sport fishermen or fly fishermen in the rivers because we have not accumulated all the revenue. If we would start putting it all together, what what Atlantic and Baltic salmon in total bring in of revenue. I'm not just talking about the the tourist or the locals or the license or the the pumps at the gas station. I'm talking about tackle, our spending with instructors, you name it.

If we would look at the numbers that way and get a total revenue, I guarantee you that around the Baltic Sea, the the fishing done in the rivers, the total revenue is so much bigger than the total revenue of our commercialized fishing. And I and I mean, to be honest, I come from a my dad was a commercialized fisherman on the on the Danish West Coast. I grew up with it. I'm not against commercialized fishing. I never have been.

I think we in in the perfect world, we the only fish we would eat would be the ones we caught ourselves or locally caught by small vessels. That that's that's my perfect picture of the world. I think it's all this over scaled huge trawlers. I mean, we know trawlers are are getting into trouble because they can't keep to the quota. Then they reregister in a different country, and they can keep at it.

I I mean, absolutely, we've covered that on on this show before with the Blue Marine Foundation who are a big institution who are who are fighting that, and and I absolutely I hear you on that. And it is a tragedy. It's an it's an absolute tragedy. Do you have issues with aquaculture? Forgive me.

I don't I don't know too much about the the fjords there, the estuaries there on the Baltic Sea. Are there fish farms, Norwegian fish farms?

Luckily enough, so far, we don't have fish farm salmon farms in the up here in the Bothanian Bay, and there's been talk about it, which is really concerning because it's one thing to have it in a in a fjord by the Atlantic. We know what a mess that does there. Mhmm. But if you were to put them in the Bothnam Bay where it takes I think it's about seven years to change the water. I mean, we're getting water in from the North Atlantic.

Right? Yep. That circle of changing that, that that seven years. If we were to start with farming in a basin that takes seven years to change that water column, We are we're done. We'll we won't have any fish.

We'll only have algaes.

Just going back to your earlier point, Lars, it seems that seems like a a a good one to lobby maybe your your politicians, your local politician, whoever it may be, to to get those stats together to to quantify the value, the commercial value of salmon angling for all the reasons that you that you pointed out, you know, the hospitality, the revenue that comes from tackle, that comes from guides, that could the whole shebang. If nobody's doing that, surely that's the start. Somebody should be doing that. You should we not be lobbying? Should you guys not be lobbying your your politicians for those statistics so that you've got the hard evidence to go into bat for the salmon?

Totally. I think the the issues we all have is that you guys are are where you at. I'm sitting here. Emily is sitting where she is. We have Icelanders sitting on on their end and and so on and so on.

I think that we do have some of these international organizations who could actually help us with methods, how to give us give us a spreadsheet so we know where to begin. And I think we all need to sort of also maybe do the same spreadsheet, not doing 45 different ones. And making sure that the politicians, when they see it, they know it's the same annoying spreadsheet that comes from UK. It comes from Iceland. It's the same from Sweden, Norway, North America.

I think we need some way to sort of gather that revenue and tell them that, listen, there is revenue on both parties for sure. But if you wanna talk revenue and the highest revenue, there's no doubt where it comes from.

Interesting. Because I think you're right. I think if you had those numbers, those cold numbers on a piece of paper, and you could prove you could prove it, you could back it up, I think you would have a very strong argument to to counter and and control the commercial fisheries commercial fishing a little bit more in the Baltic Sea. And I'm guessing you've approached the likes of NASCO and and North Atlantic Salmon Fund and and the big international NGOs when it comes to the salmon because they might be able to help you with that.

We do have the Baltic Salmon Fund, which is a Swedish organization. It's not brand new, but relatively. It doesn't have the same history. And, I mean, there are international meetings where the Baltic Salmon Fund is is, of course, represented as well. Thomas Johansson, who's in the in the movie, and Glenn Douglas from the Sport Fishing Associations in Sweden, do travel to Brussels.

And but to be honest, I mean, that that's the thing. There's there's a few individuals who can open the right doors, and they're doing what they can, honestly. And the rest of us, we can sort of we can have our feelings. We can have our opinions. We we can really burn for this thing, but we might not, on a on a personal matter, feel that we can we can add so much to it.

And I also think that's a big part of what why we wanted to do this film because I'm not educated in in in management. I I know a fair bit about it because of my interest for salmon, But but that stuff I learned because I love to fly fish for them. So I I think we all need to chip in, but I think we could internationally, we could start looking at tools to help each other where we could use the same common tools to communicate the same things that we know are important. Because when it comes to salmon or any other species for that matter, most of our politicians will look at it as a resource that needs to be done, a harvest or at least we need to show revenue Mhmm. Then we need to be able to show that revenue.

And I would argue that until we change how we value nature and the environment, fish, whatever, we're on a hiding to nothing. It can't be financial value. It has to be so much more holistic than that.

Yeah. I just want because when you say value, you you got a solid point there. And Finland actually did it, I think it's three or four years ago, Emily, where they put a value on every specie in Finland. So all the fish all of a sudden had economical value. Meaning that if you were to take a Baltic salmon in September, for example, and kill it, if you were caught with that, that was gonna cost you €2,000.

I think it was €2,000. They actually put a value on it from from the sort of how that that fish species was doing in its natural environment at the time. Meaning that if you were to see a decline of Baltic salmon, the value of that salmon would go up. Mhmm. And, I mean, we could all learn from Finland there to add value to every single specie.

We could we could create some sort of environmental stock market and put value on these things, but but I guess also what I'm saying is it's there's gotta be more than that. It's gotta be more than just financial value because because I think that there lies the ruin of it all. But thank you for that. And and please don't feel too disheartened the fact that we're reaching out to you, the fact that we're talking, the fact that we're all anglers. We all have a voice, and it makes a big difference.

I promise you, you may not feel like you know the right people or or you're particularly educated in in the right area to to make change, but that you know, you have a voice, and you know the rivers, and you know these fish better than anybody. So keep shouting, keep yelling, keep reaching out, keep coming on podcasts like this, and it does make a difference. Emily, what do you hope viewers will take away from this film? I know that you you said you'd rather not have had to have made it. It was a twenty five year sequel plan, not a two and a half year sequel plan, but you had no choice.

That's very great that you've done that. It's very valiant of you. What's your what's your hope for the takeaway of this film?

That the right people see it and that this film also also get the community to build even stronger and bigger and to make the cause. Salmon is a is a important fish for so many, both in the ocean, in the rivers, in the valleys. I mean and and for fishers and and and the nature. And and I just feel that it I help I hope it the film helped the salmon.

There was a lovely bit at the end of this film, and and it was really simple and I think really effective. It was something like some words come up come up on the screen. If you wanna help, maybe you could think about doing these things.

Yeah.

I know one of them was about fish handling. One of them was about catch and release. Can you remind me what what the others were? There were some really simple but powerful messages there.

Yeah. Exactly. And the other one was don't eat farmed salmon and don't fish over 18 degrees Celsius. Keep

fishing. Communicate the salmon.

Yeah. Keep being by the river. Goddamn it.

Keep doing what you're doing. Don't give up. Keep fishing. Keep fishing is too it's simple, isn't it? Keep fishing.

And everything that follows from that, it's it's a tent pole with with a lot of good that comes from it. So keep fishing, I think, is a really, really strong deceptively simple piece of advice. Lars, it's a generic question. What are your hopes for the future of the Baltic Seam?

Sustainable long term management. That that's a broad word or a sentence, but but that is really my hope. We do have scientists who are passionate about this as well around the Baltic, even around the Atlantic. It's just like you say, I don't wanna put a number on on the salmon. That that's not that's not where where I'm at really, but I'm also realistic and think we we might need to.

But I would rather see the salmon as a species a species that we would give the same respect as as other species with yeah. Well, we're not we're not that great at it as a human being race, to be honest. But you get my point. I I would rather see the species get managed from their right to be here just as ours Mhmm. And then support them where we can when it comes to climate change.

That should be our biggest concern, honestly. That should be climate change. The other things that we're talking about now should just be honestly, they should just be fixed. It's not not that difficult when you think about it. So so long term management, and and then I'm talking more than four year at a time.

Yeah. I mean, I I want to see a plan for the Baltic Sea in in total that that stretches more than more than four years. I think a low point would be ten years. A a good point would be a generation.

Absolutely. Get rid of short termism. Leave that for the politicians' careers. Get them to put some policies in place that last longer than than their paychecks. Okay.

We ask our guests three questions at the end of our conversation. Emily, I'm gonna start with you. If you had a billion euros, how would you spend it to save the sem?

Think I will buy the all the, like, large scale industry boats if I had a billion.

Buy them out. Buy the boats out. You're doing R. Vigversum. Well, he he showed us the way.

Okay. Same question to you, Lars.

If Emily is buying all of them out, then I wanna spend my million billion at forced education to youngsters about our ecosystem, about our fish species. Because they are the ones who have to take this torch after us. And I think that is that is really important. We need to get that next generation to focus on these things as well prior to them actually discovering it. They need to know about it.

So I think if she has a billion to do that, I'll I'll spend my billion on education.

You're you're you're investing in the future. I love it. Next question, Emily. You don't have a billion. Let's bring it back into the real world.

How would you save the sermon?

I'm not good at anything, really. So I'll probably keep doing what we do and make documentaries about to make people aware of the problem and how to solve them and and yeah. Just be by the river.

Communicating. Keep communicating. Keep keep educating. Keep spreading awareness. Absolutely.

What about you, Lars?

Totally on board with that. We we know fishing. We know how to spend time together enjoying ourselves. Make sure we can talk about tragic stuff, but still making sure to to sort of send the message that even though it's sad right now, we have to be there, and we have to enjoy each other's company. We have to try and then communicate it.

Sometimes we as salmon fly fishers or fly fishers, we can put ourselves on a pedestal and sort of things we have. Sometimes we might believe we have rights for or some certain rights. But of course, if the stock is not there, we need to take that step back. We need to let these stocks gain in strength. Yep.

That doesn't mean we can't fish. I mean, up here, I mean, in the rivers, we do have trout. We do have grayling. We do have pike. I mean, we can still be out there.

We can still watch them. It's not as fun, but if that's what it takes, of course. Because honestly, of us want to be that jerk who catches the last one.

Nobody wants to be the person who catches the last salmon. I couldn't agree more. Final question, Emily, but it's your last down earth, hypothetically. Where would you fish and with who?

Sorry, Lars and Ted, but I have to say no. Well, I have to say with my daughters. Well, because they really love fishing.

How old are your daughters?

My youngest is four, and the other one is six. My six year old daughter was in the Home River. She went out yesterday, caught out, like, a kilo trout, brown trout yesterday, and she's she's really into fishing. So I really would fish with them, I think. That's best.

Because they're gonna watch this one day. I have to say the family. Yep.

What a what a what a great what a great last day that would be. Well, a bittersweet last day that would be. Yeah. Yeah. And what about you, Lars?

No. I'm I'm totally on board. It would be wife and kids. Schengiesbrug were were sort of that's my I even know the pool will fish. Very easy.

Schengisbrug salmon fishing with the kids and wife, maybe even bring the dogs.

Both of you, it's so it's always inspiring to talk to people who've who've dedicated their lives so passionately and so willingly to the Atlantic salmon, and it's and it's not just about catching it with you too. I I can tell it's it's about conserving it. It's about spreading awareness. It's about saving your rivers. It's about lobbying your politicians.

Keep doing what you're doing. It's got our attention. And if it's got our attention, it's got others' attention. And we will help spread your word as much as we possibly can, but please keep doing what you're doing. It sounds like the Baltic salmon of which I know little about.

A little more informed after today's conversation, but, it sounds like it needs your help just as much as all the other Atlantic salmon in the Northern Hemisphere. Keep flying the flag. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you.

My thanks to Emily Bjorkman and Lars Monk for joining me. And on the next episode of The Last Salmon, we hear from Guido Ra, a remarkable man who was key to saving the salmon in the Kamchatka in the Russian Far East.

I flew over and went to Kamchatka, and that opened up an area of twenty years of with the Russian scientists exploring the rivers of Kamchatka, but it is so beautiful. The rivers are made for salmon.

And he explains why establishing salmon strongholds is vital to their future survival.

There has to be in this broader strategy an effort to prevent the last good rivers from being damaged. This is a piece of any broad strategy to save wild salmon.

Listen and follow The Last Salmon on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and remember to keep in the fight for our salmon. The Last Salmon season two is supported by the Missing Salmon Alliance.