https://phys.org/news/2024-04-river-atlantic-salmon-heart-uk.html
'For the first time in 100 years, Atlantic salmon are once again spawning in
the upper waters of the River Derwent.
The return of spawning salmon to the rivers of Derbyshire is a real
conservation success story. After centuries of intensive river management by
the county's burgeoning factories, the fish were driven extinct in many of its
waterways.
Since then, the health of some of the rivers have improved to an extent that
salmon can once again spawn. But the routes for the fish to return are still
blocked by the remnants of the industrial boom, with numerous dams and weirs
still blocking the migratory route of salmon attempting to swim upstream.
Dr. Tim Jacklin is a Conservation Officer for the Wild Trout Trust who has
worked on river restoration projects that encourage and helps the migration of
fish such as the Atlantic salmon. He was involved with the removal of a weir at
Snake Lane, Derbyshire, which allowed the salmon to recolonize the headwaters
of the River Derwent.
The catalyst for this work was seeing salmon making it all the way up the River
Derwent, but then being stopped from exploring the upper reaches where the
river becomes the Ecclesbourne.
"We'd started to see large salmon turning up in the Derwent in winter,"
explains Tim. "They became sort of local celebrities really. People were going
out with their head torches at night and looking into the river, because it's
not a particularly large watercourse and these fish were quite literally as
long as your arm, without it being an angler's tale."
"So they attracted quite a lot of attention. But it also highlighted the fact
that Snake Lane Weir, which was a concrete structure that had been built in the
1970s to replace an old mill, was a complete barrier to fish getting upstream."
This prompted the work to remove the Snake Lane Weir and replace it with a
boulder rapid that the fish would, once again, navigate over and continue on
their journey.
"It's very rewarding," says Tim. "We opened up a good ten kilometers of
spawning habitat upstream, so that translates into hundreds more juvenile
salmon that make their way downstream and hopefully to come back and spawn."
The removal of the weir at Snake Lane has allowed salmon to pass through for
the first time in over a century.'
Via
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Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
