Animal Life in Fresh Water

Iceland's freshwater fauna largely consists of the same species as are found in Europe, the remainder occurring in North America. Species generally resemble those found in Arctic areas more than temperate regions, and are fewer in number than at the same latitudes on the continent of Europe.

Species of fish
Five species of fish living partly or wholly in fresh water are native to Iceland: Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), brown trout (Salmo trutta), Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus), European eel (Anguilla anguilla) and three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Brown trout and char each have two forms, one group of which, the brown trout and char, live out their life span in fresh water, while the other, the sea trout and sea char, migrate to the sea to feed.

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), was introduced into two fish farms in the early 1950s from Denmark. In the 1960s and 1970s stray pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), presumably from North Russia, were caught in rivers in all parts of Iceland.

Atlantic salmon. The Atlantic salmon spawns in about 80 rivers in Iceland, most of which are located in the west half of the country. It spends anything from 2-5 years, but most often 3 or 4 years, in fresh water before migrating to the sea, where it stays for 1-3 years before returning to fresh water to spawn. It grows slowly while in fresh water but very fast in the sea, where it migrates long distances. Tagged Icelandic salmon have been caught off West Greenland and the Faroes, and once each in Scotland and Norway. The Atlantic salmon is economically the most valuable of freshwater fish in Iceland.

Salmon is found in rivers where the water temperature reaches 10°C or more in the summer months, namely those flowing through lowland areas and where lakes lie on the river systems. Such rivers predominate in the south, southwest and west, and the western part of the north. Only a few rivers elsewhere have salmon runs, since their water temperature remains too low.

Brown trout. The brown trout, the landlocked form, is found in many lakes and rivers. It spawns in running water and either spends a year or more there before migrating into a lake, or stays in a river for its entire life. The anadromous form, the sea trout, spawns in the river and stays there for 2-5 years before its first migration into the sea, where it feeds for several weeks before returning to fresh water. A sea trout may make several visits to the sea during its life span.

Arctic char. The char is a coldwater species, the landlocked form of which is found in most Icelandic lakes and rivers, either alone or with brown trout and/or salmon. Char living in lakes may spawn there and spend all its life in a lake environment. There are several forms of lake char; four have been identified in Lake Þingvallavatn. The anadromous form, the sea char, spawns in running water. Its life history is much like that of the sea trout, migrating to the sea and feeding there for several weeks. Sea char frequent colder rivers, in the northwest, north and east. While at sea, the sea char and sea trout grow at a slower rate than salmon, and feed near to their native rivers whereas the salmon migrates long distances.

Sea trout is mainly present in rivers in South and Southwest Iceland, while sea char is more abundant in rivers in other parts of the country where the water temperature is low in the summer. Both sea trout and sea char appear in salmon rivers, and there are also rivers where sea trout is the dominant species.

Eel. The European eel occurs in rivers and lakes, mainly in South and Southwest Iceland. The eel is a catadromous species, spawning in the Sargasso Sea whence it migrates to Europe and enters fresh water to feed. Little is known about its abundance in Iceland, since it has not been fished for regularly.

Stickleback. The three-spined stickleback occurs in rivers and lakes and is small in size, reaching up to 12 cm in length. It competes for food with parr of other species and serves as a food source itself for brown trout and char.

Fishing
The annual salmon fishing season lasts for three months within the period May 20 to September 30. Salmon runs in individual rivers start at different dates in June or at the beginning of July, earliest in the southwest and latest in the northeast. The best fishing is usually had in July. The season for sea trout and sea char begins by April 1 and lasts until October 10. There are few restrictions on fishing for brown trout and char in lakes. Winter fishing through ice is practised in some lakes.

Administration
Control of freshwater fisheries in Iceland, including the salmon fishery, is based on the Freshwater Fishery Act of 1994. The Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for the administration of these fisheries and delegates their management to the Director of Freshwater Fisheries, who is also the director of the Institute of Freshwater Fisheries which carries out research on salmon and freshwater fish, and rivers and lakes.

At local level the fisheries are managed by fishing associations, 165 in number, which are legally authorized to operate on individual rivers, river systems and lakes or groups of lakes. Fishing rights are privately owned and accompany the land that adjoins rivers and lakes. The fishable sections of rivers are usually in agricultural areas, where the land is most often owned by the farmers themselves, who are obliged to be members of the local fishing association.

Fish culture
The first salmon hatchery in Iceland was built in 1884, but it was in the 1930s that hatchery operations first became effective, when unfed fry from hatcheries were released into rivers. In the early 1950s short-term feeding before releasing was introduced and in the 1960s rearing of salmon parr up to smolt stage was initiated at the state-owned Kollafjörður Experimental Fish Farm. Salmon smolts were then released into rivers for enhancement purposes or for ocean ranching. In the 1960s and 1970s several new hatcheries and rearing stations were started. In 1983 there were about 40 hatcheries and/or rearing stations in existence, and by 1988 their number had risen sharply to 125, then fell to 75 by 1993.

Rearing stations mainly work with salmon, but also on a smaller scale with brown trout, char and/or rainbow trout. Some concentrate on smolt production, others grow the smolts on to marketable size in tanks with sea water or in cages in the sea for export to food markets. Thermal water is used in rearing stations for warming up spring water to the desired temperature in order to expedite the growth of parr to the smolt stage. For tank-rearing, sea water needs to be pumped up from the ground on beaches, at considerable cost. Cage-rearing in the sea has proven difficult, because of the relative lack of sheltered areas and the danger of subzero temperatures in the sea in the winter.


Adapted from Þór Guðjónsson, "Animal Life in Fresh Water", in Jóhannes Nordal and Valdimar Kristinsson, edidors, Iceland - The Republic. Handbook published by the Central Bank of Iceland (Reykjavik 1996), pp. 43-47. The Ministry is responsible for the abridged text.