Tom Fort
Anglers & Demons
The Salmon
By Michael Wigan
William Collins 360pp £25 order from our bookshop
G.E.M. Skues: The Man of the Nymph
By Tony Hayter
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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