News

The Angling Trust and Salmon & Trout Conservation (S&TC) have delivered a major report – ‘Time to Fix The Broken Water Sector’ – to Government on the management and regulation of the failing water and sewerage sector.

The report takes the form of a  'shadow' strategic policy statement (SPS) and has been sent to Environment Secretary George Eustice as a formal response to the Government’s own consultation. It delivers a stark message from the environmental groups and sets out why the Government’s forthcoming SPS for water must be a clear and unambiguous instruction to OFWAT to compel and enable water companies to repair sewerage systems and invest in adequate resources for water supply.

The Rivers Trust have today launched a report called The State of Our Rivers. 

The web-based report brings together key data about why only 14% of our rivers are in 'good ecological status', and identifies the big problems and big solutions.

The launch of the report is accompanied by a video Zoom call to discuss it's key messages. These are the participants: 

The EA Solent Fisheries, Biodiversity and Geomorphology team have two vacancies, based in Romsey, Hampshire: 

Test and Itchen River Restoration Project Officer. Closing date 22 August 2021. Permanent, full time or part time/job share. Do you understand chalk streams - their form, function and natural processes, relationship with their floodplains and aquifers; their biodiversity and the pressures they face; and the politics? If working with nature to restore and enhance our environment excites you, then please apply. 

Solent Fisheries, Biodiversity and Geomorphology Team Leader. Closing date 12 August 2021. Fixed term, full time or part time/ job share. The role is to lead an integrated team of fisheries and biodiversity experts, providing strong leadership, identifying and prioritising the big risks, giving clear direction and providing support to the team.

It's hot! Very hot in some places. 

A combination low water levels plus hot sunshine means high water temperatures and low oxygen levels. Once the water temperature reaches 20 – 21C, our native brown trout start to struggle and even best practice catch and release can result in unintended mortality. 

Bear in mind that the air temperature in the evenings is cooler, but the water temperature may not be. Take the temperature of the water before you fish and if it is at or around 20C, it is better not to fish.

The work that we do always has a 'people' as well as a 'trout and wildlife' focus. 

See below for an interesting little film from our chums at Aire Rivers Trust.

The site in question, a mill goit fed by a former weir across the Aire, essentially created an island upstream of the Seven-Arches Bridge at Hirst Wood. Jonny Grey from WTT was asked to visit by local EA Fisheries to advise on reinstating habitat within the goit for spawning and winter flow refuge.

Many studies have confirmed that stocking with farm-reared trout (or salmon) makes very little difference to numbers of fish in the wild. A very recent paper, published by Andy King and colleagues at Exeter Uni, reiterates this point, from their studies of a stocking programme in the Shetlands. The full, open access paper is here.

The story here (repeated in plenty of other places) is that the sea trout rod fishery collapsed in the ‘90’s, so a stocking programme was initiated in 2002 by the angling association, to stock out fry born of domesticated, farm-origin broodstock. Concomitant with the stocking programme, sea trout catches started to recover, so the angling association, understandably, reasoned that the stocking was part of that recovery.

The study analysed samples from 368 fish, genetically “finger printing” them to ascertain their ancestry. Two interesting things emerged in the data: first, there were distinct, genetic differences between trout from different burns (like we always say, a trout is not just any old trout) and, secondly, the researchers found very few fish of stocked origin: ”… our results suggest that the recovery of the Shetland sea trout population was probably not directly linked to the stocking programme”. More significant, they postulate, is that a recovery of sand eels (including a cessation of the sand eel fishery) made for more sea trout food. The work also identified a number of wild x stocked “hybrid” offspring which is problematical – it is known from salmon research that such “hybrids”, being less fit for the world, produce less fish for subsequent generations; so, paradoxically, the stocking programme could have been doing exactly the opposite to its aim. The Shetland Anglers Association ended the stocking programme in 2017.

It's not just about salmon and sea trout - all fish, including resident brown trout, need to be able to move up and downstream to complete their lifecycles. Whilst some barriers in rivers occur naturally, we humans have added a staggering 40,000 artificial barriers (check out this blog post from the AMBER project) with inevitable consequences on our fish populations. 

This blog post by Peter Jones describes the results of research into small barriers on fish communities.  You can read the full paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

For more information about rivers and barriers, visit our Rivers Resource Hub on this website, and specifically this page on weirs, culverts and hydropower.