WTT Blog

With news from the Environment Agency that our rivers will soon become uninhabitable for brown trout, we examine the impact of rising water temperatures - read more.

WTT's Prof in Practice, Jonny Grey, put an article together for our members' Autumn newsletter regarding the ambitious partnership work with Woodland Trust at their Snaizeholme project in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, part-funded by the Fishery Improvement Programme from the Environment Agency. A few months down the line and there have already been some developments, including some fantastic video footage.

Seemingly in the blink of an eye, the 5 years of funding for Jonny Grey’s TRoUT project (Tackling Resilience on Underperforming Tributaries) are up and a final report has been sent to Yorkshire Water which provided the core funding through the Biodiversity Enhancement Programme. Jonny summarised some of the achievements of the project overall in a recent news item, but the really exciting aspect in terms of more trout in the beck(s) was given over to Early Career Researcher, Harrison Lowis, to explore. Harrison has recently completed his MSc in River Environmental Management at the University of Birmingham, and used Jonny’s data (as well as contributing to collecting some of the data) for his thesis.

This blog post about the River Teifi is courtesy of Afonydd Cymru, the umbrella organisation for the Rivers Trusts in Wales, and the West Wales Rivers Trust. It is one of a series of Welsh 'rivers of the month' which each give a fascinating overview of a Welsh river from source to sea, the challenges it faces and actions underway to address the challenges.

Our thanks to Seth Johnson-Marshall and the West Wales Rivers Trust for this blog post. 

Deep dive into the complex issue of sewage in rivers compiled by Dr Paul Gaskell

As he approaches retirement, Andy Thomas describes his role as WTT Conservation Officer for the South and South-East of England.

With the trout fishing season now (largely) open, many wild trout anglers will be out on the river or lake hoping for some early season action after a long and very wet winter. This blog post aims to give a timely reminder on best practice for handling our precious wild trout so that they are released unharmed. 

In this blog post, WTT volunteer Denise Ashton attempts to summarise some of the various campaigns, media coverage and plans to address the issue of sewage pollution in our rivers since our last blog post on this topic in May 2023,

Just over a year ago, we posted news of a project, Love for Lothersdale Beck, which was shaping up in the home village of our Research & Conservation Officer, Jonny Grey. With most works complete, read about the progress of this holistic project

This article first appeared in one of our newsletters, but as it is spawning time again we thought it was worth repeating!

We've added this wonderful video from the Ness Fisheries Board (below). It is well documented for both salmon and sea trout that small young males (called 'precocious parr') will sneak in and fertilise the eggs of hen fish whilst the large adult males are busy fighting each other away. 

Duncan Philpott describes his MSc research project which he aligned to WTT habitat work carried out by Research and Conservation Officer, Professor Jon Grey. Duncan is now living in Sweden and working on research connected with trout health. 

We’ve just uploaded a new batch of recent Advisory Visit reports in the Advice & Help section of our website, showing where some of our Conservation Officers have been out and about in the last few months.