England’s wild salmon are now in their worst recorded state, according to new research from the Environment Agency, Cefas and Natural Resources Wales. The 2025 Atlantic Salmon Stock Assessment found that 95% of principal salmon rivers in England are below the level needed to keep populations going, up from 88% in last year’s assessment. The decline is severe enough to show up in a single, blunt measure. Where 15 to 20 young salmon out of every 100 once returned from the sea as adults, the agencies now say only one or two make it back. For river systems already under pressure, that is more than a species update; it is a sign that freshwater health is still moving in the wrong direction.

Researchers are clear that this is not only an England story. Similar declines are being seen across the North Atlantic, and much of the damage is happening at sea, beyond the control of any one country. Even so, the condition of rivers still matters enormously. The Environment Agency’s own analysis says the freshwater drivers are water quantity, water quality and damaged habitat. In plain terms, salmon need cool, clean, connected rivers. When flows drop, pollution builds up or spawning habitat is cut off, survival chances fall before fish even reach the ocean.

As part of its reporting to the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation, the Environment Agency has set out new commitments to 2032 aimed at all three pressures. On water quantity, that means restoring 2,282 hectares of peatland, improving flows below reservoirs and checking more closely that water companies and other users, including those taking water illegally, are not removing more water than rivers can spare. These are not abstract fixes. Peatland can help hold and release water more steadily, while better flow management matters most during dry periods, when salmon are dealing with warmer and shallower channels. If England wants healthier fish populations, it first needs healthier catchments.

Pollution control is the second major test. The agency says it will increase inspections of farms and wastewater treatment works, while funding more than 800 projects designed to cut pollution from wastewater. That matters because salmon are a demanding species. They respond quickly to falling oxygen, dirtier gravels and repeated pollution shocks. Promises on paper will count for little unless they change what is happening in the water itself, especially in rivers where sewage, farm runoff and low flows can combine into a sustained stress point.

The third strand is physical river repair. By 2032, the Environment Agency says it will clear or improve 105 barriers that block salmon from spawning grounds, restore habitat at 252 sites and plant trees along 648 hectares of riverbank to help keep water cooler and cleaner. This is the practical side of recovery, and it is where river restoration becomes visible. Reopened migration routes can give fish access to gravel beds they have not reached for years, while riverside planting can reduce overheating and improve bank condition. None of this offers a quick fix, but it does offer a route back.

There are already signs that restoration can work when effort is sustained. The Environment Agency says salmon are returning to the River Trent and River Ouse after work to improve water quality and remove barriers to migration. In Yorkshire, the Great Yorkshire Rivers Partnership is reconnecting rivers and reopening fish passage, and the return of salmon to parts of the River Don in recent years shows what can happen when rivers are cleaned up and routes are rejoined. Those examples matter because they turn a national decline into something more useful: proof that recovery is still possible.

Environment Agency chief executive Philip Duffy has described the figures as stark and said recovery will require collective action. Later this year, the agency is due to publish the next round of River Basin Management Plans, with a clear message that unnecessary weirs and other barriers will need to be removed faster if fish are to recover. That leaves England with a hard truth and a clear test. The hard truth is that salmon are now in deeper trouble than at any point since records began. The test is whether peatland repair, cleaner water, firmer enforcement and freer-flowing rivers are delivered at the pace these new figures now demand.