A visit to the (Welsh) river Dee fish trap

by Stephen Greogry - sgregory@gwct.org.uk

Anton Ibbotson and Stephen Gregory of project Morfish recently paid a visit to the Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru/Natural Resources Wales fish trapping facility on the river Dee in Chester.

Ian Davidson and Rich Cove kindly gave us a guided tour and showed us the fantastic facility in action.

The schematic below shows the trap which is located at the tidal limit. Ian and Rich are currently catching good numbers of both salmon and trout in the Dee.

 



The potential benefits of catching returning spawning fish are obvious to Anton and I. With the fish in your hand you're able to measure length and weight precisely and take biological material such as scales and fin clips.

 

We currently use a passive monitoring system for spawners meaning we detect the returns on either the adult counter or the PIT tag system. By having biological data on the returning spawners we would be able to investigate changes in the condition over time, allowing us to investigate possible drivers of stock sizes over time.

 

One last photo - Anton Ibbotson chasing fish around the trap floor:

 

Working towards a standard salmon stock monitoring programme

The GWCT's Stephen Gregory recently presented a talk on the recommendations for monitoring and modelling of salmon populations based on the shared experiences of scientific researchers working on Project Morfish.

The slides are below. Please contact Stephen on sgregory@gwct.org.uk for more information.

View Towards a standard salmon stock monitoring programme and other presentations by sgregory.

Presentation: Adult salmon monitoring on the Frome

Stephen Gregory from our fisheries team recently delivered a presentation about adult salmon monitoring on the Frome during his time spent with INRA Rennes in France. You can see the slides here:

First MorFish newsletter published

The first MorFish newsletter has been published by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust.

The newsletter details the work our scientists are conducting in partnership with fisheries scientists at INRA, a French government research agency.

Click here to download newsletter >

Introducing the MorFish Project

Atlantic salmon populations have declined considerably across much of North America and Europe since the 1990s, some by over 70%.

We’ve joined forces with a team of French scientists at Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), and will be monitoring Atlantic salmon populations over the next three years.

The aim of the project, entitled MorFish, is to harmonise and therefore improve the way salmon data is collected and analysed across three rivers – the Frome, the Scorff and the Oir.

This will provide us with a better understanding of the causes of salmon population decline and inform us on how we can help the management of that decline.

Click here to learn more >