News

One of the links established between academia and WTT via our Prof In Practice, Jonny Grey, has just borne fruit in the form of a new paper. Abbie Read (née Nye) undertook her MSc Aquatic Ecology at Queen Mary University of London. She wanted to learn more about stable isotope analyses via Jonny's co-supervision of a project on Norfolk sea trout populations coordinated by the Zoological Society of London. Samples were collected from the rivers Stiffkey and Glaven, the latter which received plenty of TLC from Conservation Officer, Tim Jacklin, back in the day which is mentioned in the paper. Abbie is continuing in the sector, having recently just taken up a position in the Restoration team at Norfolk Rivers Trust.

Migration patterns, habitat use and genetic origins of sea trout (Salmo trutta) in Norfolk chalk streams: implications for management of a mixed stock fishery can be downloaded via open access at: https://link.springer.com/arti...

Over the past couple of years, our Conservation Officer Gareth Pedley has spent quite a lot of time in Ireland, including around the River Deele in Co. Donegal, with the Deele Community Anglers’ Association (DCAA).

Following Gareth’s initial Advisory Visit in 2021 (which identified a number of major issues such as weirs and historic dredging – see the report HERE), WTT advised the Anglers’ Association on developing effective habitat enhancement projects on other stretches of the Deele, while solutions for the bigger challenges are still being considered.

Some of these ideas were implemented in summer 2024, when Gareth visited Convoy again to lead a Practical Visit with members of DCAA, helpfully organised and coordinated by Frog CIC. This included installing brash bank protection to help stabilise an area of erosion and rebuild the bank, with the anglers and Loughs Agency, and then installing fencing and cattle drinkers to save the river banks from further trampling by livestock.

Back in 2019, Jonny Grey started putting together an application to the Biodiversity Enhancement Programme, an open competition for funding from Yorkshire Water. TRoUT was ‘spawned’, to Tackle Resilience on Underperforming Tributaries. It was a five year programme to improve reaches on nine separate watercourses, primarily to boost trout spawning and fry habitat, using numbers of Young-of-Year trout as a measure of success (or otherwise).

The late Richard Chadd was a highly-respected and influential aquatic biologist: a long-term champion of riverfly monitoring who served as a Board Member for the Freshwater Biological Association (FBA), as well as their News Editor.

Following Richard’s sudden tragic death in 2021, his wife and daughter have now generously donated his extensive ecology library to the FBA for a fundraising auction. This will support students with bursaries for attending freshwater conferences, undertaking training, and developing their careers in freshwater science.

Richard’s ecology book collection includes more than 200 books, many of them rare and beautiful, with exquisite illustrations. Subjects include freshwater and terrestrial insects, reptiles, plants, fungi, and more.

The rescheduled March For Clean Water (see our previous blog post HERE) is taking place in London on Sunday 3 November.

Several WTT staff are hoping to march, and we’d be delighted if loads of WTT members and other supporters could join us!

The whole March for Clean Water will be forming up on Albert Embankment between Lambeth and Vauxhall Bridges from 11am: you can find an interactive map HERE, and a special WhatsApp channel for the day HERE. 

It was good to see the River Glaven at Bayfield Hall feature on Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing last night - in series 7, episode 5, titled Blakeney Point.

The section of the Glaven featured in the aerial shot at 25:41 is actually a new channel which was created back in 2014.

The Bayfield Hall Project, led by WTT Conservation Officer Tim Jacklin, created a new, 1.2-km long, naturalised river channel re-connecting reaches of the River Glaven that were previously interrupted by an estate lake and an enclosed, brick culvert. The dam forming the lake is an impassable barrier to fish such as sea trout and eels migrating through the River Glaven.

Pollution of rivers by slurry is a major problem for rivers in Wales, in particular the iconic rivers Towy and Teifi in West Wales, home to once thriving but now rapidly declining salmon and sea trout populations.

To address the of issue of slurry being washed into rivers, in 2021 the Welsh Government introduced a slurry spreading 'closed season' and a requirement that farmers must be able to store 5 months of slurry on their farms. £52 million has been made available to farmers to upgrade their slurry storage infrastructure.

With the very wet weather, Farming Unions have called for a relaxation of the rules but the Welsh Government has stood firm, with this statement.

At the start of this month, the WTT team gained a new and different skill set when David Oakley joined our ranks as a new Conservation Officer for the south of England.

David is a keen fisherman and also a qualified Chartered Surveyor, specialising in rural land management. He trained on the Chatsworth Estate, with part of his duties looking after the fishing interests centred on the Wye and Derwent.

Since then, he has worked in many parts of the country, always keeping river work close to his heart. David is now based in Hampshire, helping out both professionally and practically on the Test and Bourne Rivulet (of Plunket Greene fame).

Our friends at WildFish have just launched a campaign asking people to email the UK’s Secretary of State for the Environment, Steve Reed, and demand immediate action to ensure that polluting industries don’t continue to profit from the destruction of our rivers and seas.

Ahead of the March for Clean Water on 3 November, it’s all designed to increase pressure on the government to boost protection for rivers and wild fish.

Full details, including an easy-to-use email template, are on the WildFish website HERE.

The next River Restoration Centre Conference will be held in Brighton on 1-2 April 2025, and we've just heard that the call for abstracts is now open.

According to feedback from the 2024 conference, the subjects which generated most interest among attendees were:

• Community-led river restoration
• The changing landscape of river restoration funding
• Restoration projects: implementation at a large scale
• Restoration mistakes and what we can learn from them
• How do we influence the new government’s view of rivers
• Using Biodiversity Net Gain to achieve river restoration
• Restoration goals in a rapidly changing climate
• Restoration success from a land manager/owner’s perspective
• Monitoring ecological change
• Source to sea: joining up freshwater and coastal restoration
• Demonstrating the benefits of large wood in rivers
• Combining river restoration science and practice
• River restoration in environmental education
• Diversity, equality and inclusion in our river restoration community
• Evidence of climate change resilience resulting from restoration

Abstracts from outside these areas will also be welcomed, and the deadline for submissions is 28 October 2024. Find more information HERE.