Tom Fort

Anglers & Demons

The Salmon

By

William Collins 360pp £25 order from our bookshop

G.E.M. Skues: The Man of the Nymph

By

Robert Hale 304pp £25 order from our bookshop

The salmon is, as Michael Wigan puts it neatly, ‘natural royalty’ – but only among fish. Irredeemably cold-blooded and scaly, it does not qualify for the sentimental adoration bestowed on badgers, seals, hedgehogs and so on. Apart from a few anglers, ichthyologists and tender-hearted pescaphiles, no one cares much about fish. If they did, the ecological and welfare horror story that is industrial salmon farming would have been outlawed long ago.

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