Salmon 'wiped out' and other wildlife killed after River Spey chemical spill

The “tragic” event “is one of the largest the Spey Fishery Board director has ever seen and “didn’t have to happen”.

The salmon population has been “wiped out” and other wildlife have been been killed after a pollution incident in Moray.

A significant number of species including fish and birds are dead after a chemical spilled on a tributary – a stream or river that flows into a larger body of water – of the River Spey.

The chemical, thought to be caustic soda, is understood to have entered the water and “destroyed” a number of species at the Knockando burn over the last few days.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) says it is investigating a potential pollution incident on the burn. Fly fishers say the salmon population at the burn has been wiped out and could take years to recover.

Duncan Ferguson, director of the Spey Fishery Board, said the pollution incident was one of the largest he had seen in 36 years of working on the river, with a two-kilometre stretch of the Knockando burn affected.

He told Press Association: “It’s a tragic event. It’s a really bad outcome and it didn’t have to happen.”

He said the salmon population could face a five-year period of recovery, with a two-kilometre stretch of the burn “destroyed”.

The chemical is thought to be industrially linked, he said. The pollution incident comes at the peak period for fly fishing on the Spey, and just 10 days after another pollution incident at Spey tributary.

Earlier, a number of salmon died after white paint was spilled into the Burn of Carron.

A spokesman for Sepa said: “Sepa are investigating a potential pollution incident in a tributary of the River Spey and are working to identify the source and impacts.”

The Record previously reported that Scotland’s wild salmon numbers have sunk to a record low amid renewed claims commercial fish farms are a major factor driving a “catastrophic decline”.

Official figures show rod catches of salmon slumped to just 28,020 – the lowest since records began in 1952. According to data released by the Chief Statistician the figure is 68 per cent below the previous five-year average.

Conservationists and Government bodies have warned of salmon’s potential extinction in many Scottish rivers within the next two decades.

Catches have decreased from a high of 111,405 in 2010, with the 2025 reports “consistent with a general pattern of decline in numbers of wild salmon”.

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