Migrating salmon has always been a spectator sport as they make their way upstream by jumping the weir at Fermoy Bridge.
This week, a well known Ballyduff fisherman has made an appeal to the people of the town to immediately sort out the problems being experienced by the salmon that are unable to get over the weir.
“It made me sick to the bottom of my stomach today when I made the journey to Fermoy to watch the salmon jump over the weir as I have done with the last 50 plus years,” Connie Corcoran said on his Facebook page.
He points out that the natural flow of the river has changed for a number of reasons and has created an island in the middle where the natural flow used to be, thus blocking the salmon from being able to run through the fish pass.
“What I saw was exhausted fish, turning around and going back down stream, so tired from trying to jump a part of the weir that they have no hope of passing.”
He makes an impassioned plea to the people of Fermoy ‘to resolve this matter urgently’ by removing this island or else to put is a second fish pass at the Mart side of the town.
“You are not only killing and affecting the natural migration of the salmon but also you are killing the tourism to the town and local villages in the surrounding area,” he says.
