National Electrofishing Programme for Scotland Fish Counts

Marine Scotland established a programme of research to develop a juvenile salmon assessment method that can be used to determine the status of salmon populations at a range of spatial scales. This dataset includes counts of salmon (the target species) and other fish caught by electrofishing as part of the National Electrofishing Programme for Scotland (NEPS). Counts are provided for each species and run (pass). Salmon and trout are further separated by lifestage (fry and parr). Site-visit information (site name, date fished and area fished) are also provided. The salmon counts contained in this dataset underpin Malcolm et al. (2019).

Important notes:

Data were exported from the relevant databases on 17-12-2018.

Comprehensive quality control of the data has currently only been completed for salmon.

Users should familarise themselves with the NEPS design, data collection and data entry protocols prior to using these data. These details are provided by Malcolm et al. (2019) alongside a comprehensive analysis of the salmon data. I A Malcolm, K J Millidine, F L Jackson, R S Glover, R J Fryer (2019) Assessing the status of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) from juvenile electrofishing data collected under the National Electrofishing Programme for Scotland (NEPS) Scottish Marine and Freshwater Science Vol 10 No 2, DOI: 10.7489/12203-1.

Information on NEPS site locations can be found here: Millidine, K. J., Fryer, R. J., Jackson, F. L., Glover, R. S., & Malcolm, I. A. 2018. Site locations for the National Electrofishing Programme for Scotland (NEPS) and west coast SAC rivers (2018). DOI: 10.7489/12112-2.

For further information on NEPS please see the section on the MS section of the SG website.
Citation:
Millidine, K.J., Jackson, F.L., Glover, R.S., Fryer, R.J. Malcolm, I.A. (2019) National Electrofishing Programme for Scotland Fish Counts. DOI:10.7489/12201-1

Collaborators
NEPS was funded by Scottish Government, SEPA and SNH.

The following collaborating organisations are thanked for their valuable efforts in facilitating or delivering data collection, without whom this work would not have been possible: West Sutherland Fisheries Trust; Northern District Salmon Fishery Board; Caithness District Salmon Fishery Board; Helmsdale District Salmon Fishery Board; Brora District Salmon Fishery Board; Kyle of Sutherland Fisheries Trust; Cromarty Firth Fisheries Trust; Ness and Beauly Fisheries Trust; Findhorn, Nairn and Lossie Trust; Spey Foundation; The Deveron, Bogie & Isla Rivers Charitable Trust; Ugie District Salmon Fishery Board; Ythan District Fishery Board; River Dee Trust; The Esk Rivers & Fisheries Trust; Tay District Salmon Fisheries Board; Forth Fisheries Trust; Tweed Foundation; The River Annan Trust; Nith Catchment Fisheries Trust; Galloway Fisheries Trust; Ayrshire Rivers Trust; Clyde River Foundation; Loch Lomond Fisheries Trust; Argyll Fisheries Trust; Lochaber Fisheries Trust; Skye & Wester Ross Fisheries Trust; Outer Hebrides Fisheries Trust; Waterside Ecology Independent Ecological Consultants.