The number of young Atlantic salmon in Dorset’s River Frome has fallen by 70 percent in 20 years, but now Wareham farmer Ian Baggs is hoping to slow the dramatic dive.
The 35 miles long River Frome which flows into Poole Harbour at Wareham, is one of the longest chalk rivers in southern England and should have ideal conditions for salmon eggs to hatch during winter and spring.
An annual summer salmon count on the River Frome in 2025 revealed the lowest numbers yet
Aim to tag 10,000 tiny fish
Since 2002, Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) volunteers have spent four weeks in summer catching, weighing, measuring and microchipping juvenile salmon, known as parr, which are ready to migrate into the North Atlantic where they will live as adults.
The original aim was to tag at least 10,000 of the tiny fish each year – adult females can lay up to 7,000 eggs each and around 15 percent of those survive to become parr.
But in late summer 2025, the fish research team in the Frome only managed to find and tag 3,226 salmon parr, down by more than 1,250 on 2024 figures.
Numbers of the young fish have been declining since the GWCT team started tagging them in 2002, and wild Atlantic salmon are now classified as endangered in English rivers and on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, along with elephants, pandas and polar bears.
Ian Baggs, a dairy farmer on land along the banks of the Frome near Wareham, has a herd which grazes the water meadows and fields near the river and is now looking to work with the GWCT to give young salmon a better chance of survival on their way out to sea.
Dairy farmer Ian Baggs, pictured left, has made changes to the use of his land to help keep the river healthier
“I want to do more to help”
Ian Baggs said:
“I believe farmers are custodians of the land and we have an obligation to do the right thing. It’s about securing the long-term sustainability of farming and the future of generations to come.
“For decades we used to grow maize on fields above the river, where the land slopes down towards it. Now we’ve planted deep rooted grass and graze the cows on it, to stop the problem of runoff and help improve the river, reducing the amount of silt reaching it.
“We also keep cattle moving to fresh pastures every few days, to allow the environment to recover quicker. These steps will hopefully make the land more tolerant in a changing climate, improve the farm’s soils and provide good quality forage for our cows.
“I want to do more to help, and I’m always looking at ways of improving the health of the river, but like many I need adequate financial support and expert guidance, which is why the science based advice of the GWCT is vital.”
Ian Baggs and his family have farmed land near Wareham on the banks of the Frome for decades
“I have to strike a balance”
Ian added:
“As a farmer I have to strike a balance between protecting the environment, caring for my animals, and earning a living from the land by producing food.
“Farming here comes with challenges – the farm is very vulnerable to climate change and often the sandy soils on the higher fields struggle with drought, while fields on the river banks can be flooded throughout the winter.
“We aim to grow crops that will feed healthy cattle, using similar methods to those my grandfather used. We’re also breeding smaller cows, which are better suited to grazing.
“I’m happy to be a part of a wider discussion, to demonstrate that there is not a binary choice between food production and environmental enhancement. I believe that when done right, the two go hand in hand.”
Young salmon caught during the survey are weighed, measured and microchipped before being returned to the river
Weighed, measured and tagged
Every August and September GWCT scientists, volunteers and students make up two teams and head out daily for four weeks to cover most of the River Frome, fishing sections at a time, with tagging work undertaken in a mobile riverbank laboratory.
At least three people get in the river and walk upstream in waders with a metal loop which creates a slight electric current in the water to slow the fish’s movement allowing them to be captured.
The fish are then put in a bucket and handed over to the lab team on the riverbank to be weighed, measured and tagged with tiny microchips.
After recovering in a bucket of oxygenated water the fish are returned unharmed to the same section of the river where they were caught.
GWCT head of fisheries Dylan Roberts warns that salmon could soon disappear for good from the Frome
Algae growth smothers the bed of the Frome and destroys habitat for young salmon
“So few wild salmon in our rivers now”
Dylan Roberts, head of fisheries at GWCT, said:
“Many people won’t think there is a problem with salmon – after all, the fishmongers’ counters are full of whole, filleted, and smoked salmon, but the reality is that this is all farmed salmon, reared in cages at sea to satisfy a market which demands cheap food.
“Numbers of wild Atlantic salmon have declined dramatically over the last 40 years, and there are so few wild salmon swimming our rivers now, that commercial fisheries and anglers are not allowed to kill any salmon on most rivers in England.
“If you go back 150 years, salmon were so abundant that they were harvested in their hundreds of thousands, excess was fed to pigs and used as fertilizer on the land.
“Staff at country estates insisted that it was written into their contracts that they should only be fed wild salmon four times a week – but rivers which once had tens of thousands of salmon now only have a few hundred in them.
“If we don’t help them soon they will disappear from rivers like the Frome, which is why we collect data every year on the salmon population to allow us to understand the problems.”
It is hoped that cleaning up the River Frome will result in larger, healthier fish
As a chalk stream, the River Frome should be an ideal spawning ground for Atlantic salmon
Clean water and healthy plants
Dylan added:
“Salmon face much tougher conditions in the oceans than in the rivers where they hatch, but if we can improve conditions in our rivers, and make sure they can grow fitter, larger, and stronger they will stand a better chance, once they migrate to sea, of returning in larger numbers.
“My team has seen changes to the river Frome in recent years, with a huge increase in the growth of algae between spring and autumn which smothers the riverbed, and reduces the growth of plants like water crowfoot, crucial habitats for juvenile salmon and the insects they feed on.
“We’ve also seen increases in the quantity of sediment, which is mud running from the riverbanks and ploughed fields into the river where it smothers and suffocates salmon eggs.
“Algae also reduces the amount of oxygen available to fish in rivers at night, and during the warmer months, this can stress fish, reduce their growth or even kill them.
“Being larger is crucial to increase their chance of survival at sea, as larger juvenile salmon are three times more likely to return to the river as adults – so young salmon in the Frome need the river full of clean water and healthy plants!”
