The last survivors are not trophies.

Atlantic salmon are probably going through one of the most serious crises in their modern history.

And despite this, the 2026 season begins exactly like the previous ones: same behaviors, same excuses, same collective inability to recognize the true extent of the collapse.

Our kelts. Our black salmon, thin and weakened, that spent the entire winter in the river after spawning in the fall. Fish that have barely eaten for months. Exhausted survivors now undertaking an extremely dangerous migration to the grazing grounds of Greenland to try to recover physically before, perhaps, returning to spawn again. They are probably the most vulnerable fish in the entire population. And yet, some are still being pulled from the water, handled, photographed, and displayed as early-season trophies. Seeing migrating salmon dangling from boats in 2026, after the historic collapses of 2024 and 2025, is not just poor judgment. It's a sign that some in the industry still refuse to grasp how dire the situation has become.

And too many anglers still set foot in a river without even knowing the numbers of salmon runs it receives. That's the real problem. We continue to talk about salmon as a passion, a tradition, or a heritage, but too few people seem ready to accept what the situation truly demands when populations collapse.

The salmon that are returning today do not represent an abundance.

They represent what remains. The survivors of a brutal multifactorial mortality: warming waters, lack of food, predation, diseases, accidental capture, habitat degradation, marine disturbances in the Gulf and the North Atlantic.

Fish that have survived the ocean.

Fish that survived the winter with almost no energy reserves.

Emaciated fish returning to spawn with what little strength they have left.

And despite this, we still too often continue to treat them as biologically available trophies.

The unease is there.

We know.

The figures exist.

The signals are everywhere.

But collectively, we still refuse to act in proportion to the crisis. Because truly acting would require courage.

The courage to impose mandatory heat protocols.

The courage to suspend subsistence fishing on devastated populations.

The courage to temporarily close certain rivers below biologically critical thresholds.

The courage to publicly admit that simply putting it back in the water does not constitute a recovery strategy.

Releasing the fish back into the water is a minimum measure. Nothing more.

When a river receives fewer than 150 salmon, each spawner becomes biologically important. At these levels, even pressure deemed “acceptable” under normal circumstances can have serious consequences. And yet, instead of fundamentally questioning our practices, we often continue to protect something else: our habits, our comfort, our image as salmon anglers, and our need to carry on as before.

Perhaps the most shocking part of this whole crisis is not just the salmon collapse itself, but our ability to normalize it while it unfolds before our eyes. As if simply releasing a fish is now enough to erase all moral responsibility toward a declining population.

The reality is much harsher. A species doesn't disappear solely because of what happens at sea. It also disappears when those who claim to love it become incapable of sacrificing themselves to give it a real chance of survival.