Sea trout, also called sewin in Wales, are an important fish for commercial and recreational fishing in Wales- and of course the recreational fishing brings vital tourism spend to rural Wales.

But catches have been declining and the fish caught smaller. The sewin is an enigmatic fish-not a great deal is known about its life at sea, other than that it returns to spawn in its native river.

With the ultimate aim of safeguarding this important fish species, a major research project led by Bangor University aims to understand more about the habits and habitat of this important resource.

The Celtic Sea Trout Project has an overall value of £1.8 million and involves partners surrounding the Irish Sea. The project will be launched in Bangor on Thursday 11 March with a keynote speech by Elin Jones Minister for Rural Affairs at the Welsh Assembly Government. The three year project is part-funded by the Ireland-Wales INTERREG IVA programme, with the Welsh Assembly Government, Environment Agency Wales and Government agencies in Ireland providing the match-funding. A number of rivers trusts and organisations in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and North West England will also contribute samples to the project.

Although exactly the same species as brown trout, instead or remaining in the freshwater river, a proportion of the fish from each river take to the sea and become sea trout.

"Sewin, like other fish from the salmon family, are a good indicator species of the health of a river. Although juvenile trout in fresh water have been well studied, we know very little about sea trout once they migrate to sea. It's not known exactly where these fish actually feed in the Irish Sea, whether sea trout from different rivers or regions congregate together or have separate feeding grounds. Learning more about the fish is the first step in planning to secure its future," commented Dr Ian McCarthy of the School of Ocean Sciences.

The experts at Bangor University's School of Ocean Sciences and Biological Sciences will be working with Irish partners (led by the Central Fisheries Board of Ireland).

Bangor's scientists will be deploying state of the art techniques such as molecular genetics, and the chemistry of fish ear bones, to develop tools to identify fish caught in a region-wide freshwater sampling programme to their region, and hopefully river of origin. They will also studying which rivers produce the largest numbers of fish.

Commercial fisheries and leisure anglers are being asked to get involved by sending in scale samples and catch details as the project involves sampling large numbers of fish from over 20 of Wales' rivers and from 80 rivers in total within the Irish Sea region.

The results will guide those charged with conserving fish stocks in developing better informed and targeted management and conservation plans for sewin.