Waist-deep in a rain-swollen river, Christer Kristoffersen cast his line, landed it gently on the water, and caught ... nothing. Norway's iconic wild salmon is in dramatic decline, a victim of fish farming and climate change.

"As a kid, in the early 1980s, there was so much fish in the river, you have no idea. It was packed with sea trout and salmon. We could catch 10-15 fish in one evening," said the fly fishing enthusiast as he stood in the Stjordal river.

Despite decades of experience, the 52-year-old left the river empty-handed 10 days straight.

Wild salmon is now so rare that Norway in 2021 placed it on its red list of near-endangered species.

An ever-growing number of wild salmon, which hatch in freshwater rivers before migrating to oceans as adults, are not returning to their birthplace to spawn upstream.

They disappear at sea for as yet unknown reasons, though scientists suspect a link to climate change.

Only 323,000 wild salmon swam upstream in Norway's rivers in 2024, against one million tallied annually in the 1980s, according to the Norwegian Scientific Advisory Committee for Atlantic Salmon, an independent body set up by the Norwegian Environment Agency.

That has sparked concern among sport anglers and those who make a living from the........

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