Chalk Streams - an Institute of Fisheries Management talk

The Institute of Fisheries Management has arranged a talk on Chalk Streams by Lawrence Talks, editor of FISH Magazine. The subject is the value and management of chalk streams. This is a rare opportunity to learn a bit more about our fascinating rivers. There are always new things to learn about chalk streams!

It will be in Teffont Village Hall on Thursday 20th March at 7pm. Tickets are £5 and include a glass of wine. All money goes to the charity Afghanaid.

Contact Selaine on 07801 427358 or selainesaxby@hotmail.co.uk to book your place.

The current scene at our Salmon & Trout Research Centre

These photos were taken on 25th February at our Salmon & Trout Research Centre on the Frome at East Stoke in Dorset. They show the high water flow through the counter and flooding:

Electric Fishing Courses in May

We're running courses for people who use electric fishing to catch fish at our Salmon and Trout Research Centre in East Stoke, Dorset.

Taking place on 14th May, the courses cover all the requirements of the Lantra National Occupational Standards section FiM 10 and FiM 12 ‘Catch fish using electro fishing techniques’.

Places are limited to just 20 so be quick if you wish to book your place.

Find out more >

How to PIT-tag a salmon parr

Our state of the art research facilities on the River Frome include electronics that enable us to record the migration history of individual fish. Each September, since 2005, we have fitted 10,000 salmon parr with Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) tags that transmit an individual barcode when a fish swims past one of our antennae.

Approximately 10% of the Frome salmon population is fitted with PIT tags, helping to make the River Frome salmon population one of the most comprehensively studied in Europe.

This is how we tag the salmon:

1. The parr are caught by electro-fishing. Two teams work on the river for three weeks until 10,000 parr have been tagged. An average of 400 parr are tagged each day per team.

2. The fish is anaesthetised and the length and weight are recorded. Scales are collected and are used to look at growth rate, age and to determine sex.

3. A small insertion is made with a scalpel and a PIT tag is inserted into the body cavity where it will remain for the lifetime of the salmon.

4. The fish is transferred to a holding tank to recover before being released into the 100-metre section where it was caught.

Our salmon work

We're conducting vital research into what is causing the decline in salmon numbers with the ultimate goal of reversing that decline...

Click here to find out more >

Salmonids in the floods

You may have noticed we're experiencing a bit of wet weather at the moment in the UK with flooding heaping misery on people across the country.

Flooding on the River Avon at GWCT HQ in January 2014

Whilst the effects of flooding on humans are all too obvious, we are not the only species to be affected by floods. Fish inhabit the very rivers that are bursting their banks onto the surrounding towns and countryside. Unlike humans, however, fish have been experiencing floods in their native river habitats for hundreds or thousands of years. And because floods present a strong evolutionarily selective force (you adapt or you die), fish have adapted to survive and even thrive under certain flood conditions.

Salmonids are a good example of a group of fish species that have adapted to local flow regimes...

Read full article on our website >

New Presentation: Wylye Grayling Long-Term Study

Stephen Gregory of the GWCT recently gave a talk at the Avon Piscatorial Society annual Fly Day meeting in Salisbury. The topic of the talk was grayling on the Wylye river in Hampshire and how the population might be affected by flooding, past and future.

You can view the slides from the presentation here:

View Piscatorial Society Fly Day Grayling Talk Feb14 and other presentations by sgregory.