AIRBORNE poaching patrols are to be introduced to protect salmon stocks
returning to one of the royal family's favourite fishing rivers.
Bailiffs will use helicopters to search for illegal netting at sea near the mouth of
the River Dee at Aberdeen, north-east Scotland. The patrols follow a
significant decline in the number of fish returning to the river, on which
generations of the royal family have learned to fish at Balmoral.
Robert Fettes, manager of the Dee Salmon Fishery Board, said: "Rod fishing
is worth around £6 million annually to the local economy, and supports
around 400 jobs. The royal family are very supportive of any conservation
measures that we implement."
He added: "It is difficult to tell what vessels are doing when you are viewing
them from a cliff-top. In a helicopter you can look right down on to the water
and see what's happening."
The cause of the decline in salmon numbers is not known. Climate change is
suspected along with over-fishing and a large, predatory seal population, as
well as poachers.
The poachers try to intercept the fish by drift netting and with fixed nets
before they return to their spawning grounds in fresh water. To prevent
over-fishing, anglers are participating in a voluntary "catch and release"
scheme.
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Last Tsar to be canonised(UK Times)
FROM ALICE LAGNADO IN MOSCOW
THE Russian Orthodox Church is about to approve plans
to canonise the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family in
response to a wave of growing "Nicholas-mania".
The Council of Bishops met yesterday to discuss the fate
of the imperial family as well as of hundreds of priests
killed by the Communist regime.
Some Russians despise the man known as "Bloody
Nicholas" for allowing the St Petersburg city governor to
fire on thousands of demonstrators in 1905. They say he
was weak, indulgent and sometimes brutal. Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn and many others believe Nicholas's
abdication in 1917 led the country inevitably towards 70
years of communism.
Opposing this is a growing movement in favour of
glorifying Nicholas. Last July several thousands attended
services for the dead and religious processions in
Moscow, Yekaterinburg and St Petersburg, where the
imperial family's remains are kept, to mark the 82nd
anniversary of their deaths.
Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and their five children were
killed by a Bolshevik firing squad on July 17, 1918.
The Church will canonise the family as "passion-bearers",
the lowest rank of sainthood. It says the Tsar will be made
a saint for his Christian humility in accepting his death
rather than as a mark of approval of his reign.