Fisheries Research 74 (2005) 127–133 Female biased angling harvests of Atlantic salmon in Spain Juliana P´ erez a , Jorge I. Izquierdo a,∗ , Jer ´ onimo de la Hoz b,1 , Eva Garcia-Vazquez a a Departamento de Biolog´ ıa Funcional, Gen´ etica, Universidad de Oviedo, C/ Juli´ an Claver´ ıa s/n, 33006-Oviedo, Spain b Servicio de Caza y Pesca, Principado de Asturias, Edificio Consejer´ ıas, C/ Coronel Aranda s/n, 33071-Oviedo, Spain Received 22 December 2004; received in revised form 10 March 2005; accepted 16 March 2005 Abstract There is a long tradition of Atlantic salmon sport angling in northern Spain. The legal angling season covers the period March–July since 1940. Populations declined over the last decades. In this study, more than 9000 Atlantic salmon caught over 11 years (1993–2003) by sport anglers in the four main rivers of the Spanish Cantabric coast were immunologically sexed and their age determined by scale reading. Females entered the rivers early in the angling season (March–June) whereas males entered mainly in July. 71.7% of the salmons angled during that period were females. Up to 67.7% of individuals were MSW (multi-sea-winter) being 85.5% females. Among the females, 80.7% were (MSW). We concluded that sport angling was based mostly on females in that Spanish region. Significantly decreasing trends of catches exist for the four rivers studied together with a significant increase of the proportion of females angled for the last 11 years. A change in the angling season is suggested by the authors for preserving females from catching and thus increasing natural egg production. The need of revising traditional management policies is discussed in the light of the new knowledge about salmon population biology and demography. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Sex-ratio; Sport angling; Natural resources conservation; Salmo salar 1. Introduction Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) angling has a long tradition in North Spain. Local economies of villages bordering the rivers are based on sport angling. But Spanish populations suffered a dramatic decline since 1950, due to diverse reasons such as pollution, dams, ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 985102726; fax: +34 985103534. E-mail addresses: jeronihr@princast.es (J.d.l. Hoz), egv@fq.uniovi.es (E. Garcia-Vazquez). 1 Tel.: +34 985105735; fax: +34 985105538. etc., that bring about the loss of spawning sites. The past century it was claimed that thousands of salmon entered the River Navia (region of Asturias) per day (Larios, 1930; Martin Ventura, 1988); that population is almost extinct today, with only 10–12 couples spawning in a river area less than 2 km long. More than 50% of the Spanish populations existing 50 years ago are extinct at the present (Bra˜ na et al., 1995a; WWF, 2001). Declines have been associated with a reduction in sea age and the numerical size of returns (Garcia de Leaniz et al., 1987; Bra˜ na et al., 1995a). The four best-preserved Spanish Atlantic salmon populations inhabit the Cares, Sella, Narcea and Esva rivers of Asturias (WWF, 2001), in 0165-7836/$ – see front matter © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.fishres.2005.03.008