King’s Childhood Salmon River is ’Empty’

The paper said Broadlands, a 4,500-acre estate with a two-and-three-quarter-mile stretch of the chalk stream, took the decision to halt salmon fishing following the 2025 season. The estate manager, Andrew Forrester, told the Daily Mail the move reflected the scale of the decline, and said chalk-stream salmon are classed as endangered by the Environment Agency.

The report cited anglers blaming reduced flows on over-abstraction by the local water company, a long-running point of contention on chalk streams where flows depend on groundwater levels and extraction pressures. Southern Water, which supplies parts of Hampshire, told the Daily Mail that Atlantic salmon decline is a global issue and said it is investing in new water resources to protect rivers including the Test.

The River Test is one of a small number of globally rare chalk streams and has become a focal point in wider debates about water availability, drought planning and river ecology. In 2024, the Environment Agency said salmon stocks in England were at critically low levels, with 90% of principal salmon rivers classed as “at risk” or “probably at risk”.