"North Atlantic populations are at a historic low, and this year 33 of the country’s rivers were closed during the fishing season as salmon farming and the climate crisis threaten the fish’s future"
"“What is Norway without the fjords and the mountains?” asks Ann-Britt Bogen from her candlelit kitchen, the wild Gaula River flowing by outside the window, the hillside covered by low-lying cloud. For centuries, the river, which runs 153km (95 miles) from the mountains near the Swedish border to Trondheim fjord, has attracted salmon – and fishers – year after year.
But this spring the salmon, particularly the medium and larger-sized fish, did not come back from the ocean, raising such alarm over the collapse of the salmon population that the river, along with dozens of others in central and southern Norway, was abruptly closed for the first time.
Visitors cancelled their plans and stayed away, leaving the area, which revolves around salmon fishing, feeling “like doomsday”, according to Bogen, who runs Gaula Fly-fishing Friends and has a fishing lodge on her family farm. The river will now be closed until 31 August when the season ends. “Without the salmon, Gauldalen is just a valley – an empty valley.”"
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