FISH 130. Summer 2018

Edition 130 / Summer 2018

The Quarterly Magazine of Fisheries Management

Fisheries Management in Estuarine and Coastal Waters The Greater Thames Fish Migration Roadmap Debunking Paradigms in Estuarine Fish Species Richness The Role of Managed Re-alignment Schemes as Compensatory Fish Habitat Fish Entrapment in Power Station Cooling Water Systems

PLUS: Report from the 35th NASCO Annual Meeting, Portland, Maine, USA Valerie Holt reflects on the importance of intertidal zones Book Review: Guide to the Manta and Devil Rays of the World

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Fish 130 This edition of FISH stems from our most recent Specialist Conference, which was themed on fisheries management in estuarine and coastal waters and held at Lancaster University.

Of course only a flavour of the presentations can be included here, however, if you would like to find out more, go to: 8th Annual IFM Specialist Conference

Fish 130

Inside this edition 4

View from the Chair

8

The Greater Thames Fish Migration Roadmap

12

Debunking Paradigms in Estuarine Fish Species Richness

16

The Role of Managed Re-alignment Schemes as Compensatory Fish Habitat

20

Fish Entrapment in Power Station Cooling Water Systems

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Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018

32

The Conservation Column

36

The Paul Coulson BLOG

40

IFM News

46

Breaking News

50

Book Review

52

Members and their fish

Editorial Team: Lawrence Talks, Steve Axford Ian Dolben, Peter Spillett, Valerie Holt Paul Coulson, Eamon Cusack

IFM ( Institute of Fisheries Management ) PO Box 679, Hull, HU5 9AX Tel: +44(0)845 388 7012

E-mail: info@ifm.org.uk. www.ifm.org.uk Find us on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter (@IFMFish)

In our first article Amy Pryor of the Thames Estuary Partnership urges a more integrated approach to facilitating fish migration across freshwater and marine boundaries. For the survival of critically endangered migratory fish species, like the European eel, it is crucial that a river basin scale approach that integrates marine and freshwater environments is taken, as promoted by the Water Framework Directive.

Adam Waugh, marine specialist in the Environment Agency, then discusses what affects

fish species richness in estuaries. This is followed

by Thomas Stamp of Plymouth University, who investigates whether managed re-alignment provides compensatory fish habitat. In our final technical article, Hannah Young of Jacobs UK discusses how to assess the ecological significance to fish populations and their predators of fish entrapment in power station cooling water systems.

Included is a report from the 35th NASCO Annual

Meeting which took place in Portland, Maine, USA. In our Conservation Column, Valerie Holt reflects on the importance of intertidal zones. Our Book Review highlights a gem of a book: Guide to the Manta and Devil Rays of the World by Wild Nature Press.

Finally the IFM’s 49th Annual Conference is fast

approaching, so book your place now. It is to be held in Hull and the theme is: Thriving or Surviving – Creating Resilient Fisheries.

If you would like to contribute to FISH please get in touch.

Front cover: Thames Estuary and wind farms from space NASA Design: POLAR 10 www.polar10.com

Lawrence Talks - FISH editor fish@ifm.org.uk 3

View from the Chair

View from the Chair I’ll do my best to avoid the B word for this View from the Chair as Brexit has dominated my last two editions. But briefly, as it is too important a topic to avoid, as I write (20 July 2018), the UK Parliament has gone into recess for the summer and two cabinet ministers have resigned whilst the Government has the job of resolving the most complex and significant constitutional crisis in a generation. With all parties very divided on even its own view of the best deal for the UK, any prediction on the outcome for the UK and the impact on our lives is as flimsy as betting on Germany of Brazil to win the World Cup. These are testing times, and whilst Theresa May was handed the most challenging job for a Prime Minister since the Second World War, I do hope that she can find the best course for the country.

In the meantime, IFM has been taking its role seriously and I am proud to say how united our teams have been in preparing our position on a series of important policies and consultations.

We are preparing our response to the Government’s consultation on the 25 Year Environment Plan, which sets out how the environment (in England) will be managed for the next 25 years. We are also preparing our response to the Government’s Fisheries White Paper, which sets out how our marine fisheries will be managed after Brexit. This is the one, where amongst other headlines, ‘we will be able to catch more of our own fish’.

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You can see what the Institute’s policies are by going to: https://ifm.org.uk/about-us/policies/.

This edition of FISH stems from our most recent Specialist Conference, which was themed on fisheries management in estuarine and coastal waters and held at Lancaster University. Core topics included discussing the challenges in marine fisheries management, migratory and estuary fish species, shellfish and aquaculture, climate change and habitat creation and finally socio-economics. It was well attended and there was a lot of positive feedback. Such specialist conferences are essential for equipping fisheries technical specialists whether in consultancies or the public sector with the knowledge, skills and continual professional development necessary to be at the leading edge of fisheries management.

Holding such specialist conferences is one of the areas that the IFM excels at, and here I would like to express my sincere thanks to Paul Coulson and the wider organising team for doing such a marvellous job. I would also like to thank our conference sponsors Vemco and RS Aqua.

Our next major event is our 49th IFM Annual Conference, which will be held in Hull Guildhall between the 16th and 18th October 2018. The theme is Thriving or Surviving – Creating Resilient Fisheries. I urge you to book your place now and look forward to seeing you there. The Annual Conference is always an excellent event and a great place to catch up with friends and make new ones. For a full list of our forthcoming events and activities please visit our website: IFM events.

If you have any feedback for the Institute, with what or how we can improve, do contact us. chairman@ifm.org.uk.

David Bunt | IFM Chairman

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The Greater Thames Fish Migration Roadmap

The Greater Thames Fish Migration Roadmap Amy Pryor of the Thames Estuary Partnership, urges a more integrated approach to facilitating fish migration across freshwater and marine boundaries.

Amongst the most fragmented habitats Eel Management Plans (EMPs). More recently, the Greater Thames Estuary (up to tidal limits in the world Rivers in countries of the North Sea region are some of the most fragmented by human development in the world. Diadromous fish, such as the European eel, bass, sea lamprey and flounder, depend on free migration between marine and freshwater habitats to complete their life cycle. Habitat loss or changes upstream and downstream, river channel and geomorphology changes, flow dynamics and so on, mean that technical fish pass solutions will always be mitigation for a single structure rather than a complete solution. Various EU Directives and national legislation require ‘no further deterioration’ in ecological indicators and in most cases improvements to those indicators, e.g. migratory fish in the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), EU Eel Recovery Plan and the UK and River Basin District (RBD) 8

of all the tributaries draining into it, including the freshwater Thames) is included in the South East Marine Plan area, which further requires substantial cross-boundary planning.

Migratory fish do not heed administrative boundaries Migratory fish do not heed administrative boundaries, moving between marine and terrestrial planning processes, and their habitat is relevant to both river basin planning and flood defence asset management. As a consequence there is a need to analyse the barriers to migration across the entire estuary system, which requires a strategic approach across multiple RBDs and their coastlines.

This project seeks to address the current lack of an integrated approach and proposes to

The Greater Thames Fish Migration Roadmap

look at migratory routes as roads to identify the ‘highways’, ‘A-roads’ and ‘B-roads’ that migrating fish will use. This concept of a roadmap for fish migration was first developed in the Netherlands by Peter Philipsen, of Nature At Work and WFD coordinator for fish migration in the Rhine West river basin, the western part of the Rhine delta, to enable a more integrated river basin-like approach.

Barriers and fragmentation in highly urbanised areas in the Netherlands and the UK A roadmap approach for fish migration is especially needed in highly urbanised and fragmented areas like the western part of the Netherlands because it lies beneath sea-level. All the excess water needs to be pumped out of the polders by countless pumping stations and the salt water (from the sea) needs to be kept out with many sluices and weirs. The result is a highly fragmented water system. In the Netherlands there are about 18,000 barriers to fish migration. Thus, the roadmap for fish migration is relevant to all urbanised deltas/estuaries in the UK and across Europe because our main deltas/ estuaries often lie in highly urbanised areas/cities like London (Thames), Cardiff and Bristol (Severn), or Amsterdam and Rotterdam (River Rhine).

three spined_stickleback_blikonderwater.nl

Roadmap The GIS roadmap for fish migration makes it possible to combine asset management data (e.g. pumping stations) with monitoring data both at the barrier level and the regional level.

Having assimilated the data, the solutions we come up with - in terms of optimising migratory ‘traffic flow’ - are very similar to the ones you find in traffic management. By working in a GIS setting with a roadmap, it makes it possible to look at the river system as a network with the possibility of modelling routes and barriers.

Statistics like ‘nearness’ and ‘betweenness’ (shortest route) can then be analysed to help determine optimum migration routes for fish and prioritise barriers and measures to improve fish migration. As a consequence, the connectivity map looks very similar to the traffic flow maps you find on a smartphone using Google Maps when navigating from A to B. In the UK, we already have datasets detailing the barriers in each River Basin District and have achieved great successes in fish passage and river and wetland restoration work nationwide.

Catchment Partnerships created through the UK’s response to Water Framework Directive delivery, via the Catchment Based Approach (CaBA), are making headway into taking a more integrated approach to river management and prioritisation of works to improve water quality.

But focus has been mainly on the freshwater 9

The Greater Thames Fish Migration Roadmap

extents of our river systems, with limited successful delivery in estuaries and coasts, and fish passage mitigation is often delivered in a piecemeal, opportunistic way. Rarely is a strategic and integrated approach taken across geographic and administrative boundaries and this project gives the opportunity to pilot that approach.

and up to 30km upstream of tidal extents on the Thames tributaries and freshwater Thames.

Through a series of regional workshops, we will engage with Catchment Partnerships, Environment Agency teams, local organisations, communities and industry to gather more data, share knowledge and build a prioritisation protocol.

Nature At Work will play a key role enabling us to build on previous successes and share knowledge with our Dutch colleagues.

Joining the Thames Estuary Partnership and Nature At Work on the project steering group are the Zoological Society of London, the Environment Agency and the Institute of Fisheries Management.

At the same time, we will gather case studies of fish passage and habitat restoration stories to celebrate successes and build appetite for more work on fish migration, building relationships across freshwater and marine boundaries.

The Project is to be delivered in two phases.

The first phase has collated and mapped existing known datasets, and, at a technical stakeholder workshop in March, the approach and data challenges were checked. This first-stage analysis at the beginning of this year highlighted problems within the existing datasets, which required investigation and standardisation in order to assemble a definitive barrier dataset for the study area. This has laid the foundations for Phase 2, where we will build on the work completed to date over the next 12 months. We will be engaging with relevant stakeholders from across the region between Felixstowe in the East and Dover in the South 10

Action where it is most needed For the survival of critically endangered migratory fish species like the European eel it is crucial that a river basin scale approach that integrates marine and freshwater environments is taken, as promoted by the Water Framework Directive. Through developing this roadmap approach and through working in partnership and bringing together the latest science, expertise and learning from different countries it will enable actions to be focussed on where they are most needed. https://thamesestuarypartnership.org/ourprojects/greater-thames-estuary-fish-migrationroadmap/

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Debunking Paradigms in Estuarine Fish Species Richness

Debunking Paradigms in Estuarine Fish Species Richness Adam Waugh, marine specialist in the Environment Agency, discusses what affects fish species richness in estuaries.

The importance of estuaries for freshwater, migratory, estuarine and many marine fish species is well described, with their highly variable environments providing essential breeding, feeding and nursery habitats.

Estuaries and their catchments also support large urban and industrial areas, containing anthropogenic activities and pressures associated with development. Given this, there is a need to understand the relationship between fish species and estuary environments to inform management decisions.

Relationships between biogeography, geomorphology and fish diversity This has led to the exploration of the relationships between biogeography, geomorphology and fish diversity in estuaries at global, regional and local scales. The 12

studies to date exploring this complex range of factors, suggest two underlying fundamental paradigms that explain fish species richness in estuaries. Firstly, species richness appears to increase with waterbody size in which the species-area relationship assumes that larger waterbodies support a higher number of species as they are likely to provide a greater diversity of habitats and therefore a higher availability of ecological niches. Secondly, the speciesenergy relationship hypothesis postulates that species richness decreases with increasing latitude. However, these hypotheses have not been tested on consistent and quality-controlled estuarine fish datasets.

To address this challenge, to describe species richness, species accumulation curves were used as these are able to be constructed using varied survey areas and sample sizes. This approach then also provides an opportunity

Debunking Paradigms in Estuarine Fish Species Richness Hull and Humber Estuary

to examine the relationships between species richness and estuaries with different characteristics and from different locations. In this study data from 27 estuaries across England and Wales were used to explore the two underlying paradigms of species-area relationship and species-energy relationship that are considered to affect estuarine fish species diversity.

Species richness The species accumulation or rarefaction curves, once constructed for each of the 27 estuaries, were similar in overall shape for each estuary, with the first 50 samples (S) providing the steepest part of the species accumulation. Of the 27 estuaries three had a species richness (SR) of over 50 (Carrick Roads Inner (Tamar), Dart and Dee), two of which reached over 50 species within 100 samples (Carrick Roads Inner (Tamar), Dart) with the third taking around 176 samples to reach >50 species (Dee).

Some estuaries, such as the Taw/Torridge and the Thames, had a pronounced profile of a steep gradient in the first 50 samples with the curve quickly levelling off thereafter. The Thames is the most highly sampled estuary

in the dataset, with a total of 285 samples yet it does not contain many species. When the sample size was 50 species richness was 24.94, which represents 82% of total observed species richness within 18% of samples. Over the next 235 samples, only a further 10.06 species were recorded, which represents18% of total observed species richness from 82% of samples. This indicates that continued sampling beyond the first 50 samples provides little extra information regarding the total observed species richness. The profiles of other estuaries, such as the Severn and Southampton Water, have a less pronounced levelling off phase. In Southampton Water, from 50 samples species richness equalled 25.94, which represents 63% of total observed species richness from 21% of samples. The remaining 36% of total observed species richness was then recorded from a further 186 samples.

This suggests that not only is Southampton Water recording more species than the Thames (41 compared to 35 for the Thames) but also the recorded species are more evenly spread throughout the samples, which means more effort was required to gain an understanding of the entire species composition.

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Debunking Paradigms in Estuarine Fish Species Richness

High and low diversity estuaries

Studies detailing the observed latitudinal gradient in many biological realms indicate Given this, the study then chose to separate the that this phenomenon is illustrated best in the 27 estuaries into high diversity estuaries (HDEs), marine field and that climates with higher and where SR>40 and S=100, and low diversity consistent temperatures support higher diversity. estuaries (LDEs) where SR ≤36 and S=100.

This concurs with the notion that greater The high diversity estuaries group comprised rates of metabolism, ecological dynamics and of five estuaries (Carrick Roads Inner (Tamar), co-evolutionary processes are all supported Dart, Dee, Poole Harbour, Humber and Exe), by higher temperatures. In the context of with the remaining 21 estuaries making up the estuarine fish ecology, higher temperatures significantly different low diversity estuaries at lower latitudes, leading to higher biological group (Mann-Whitney W = 125.0, p<0.05). rates have also been suggested as leading The estuaries in the high diversity estuaries to biogeographic differences, perhaps due to group were smaller (mean= 3,884 ha; SD= shorter generation times and higher mutation 4,086) than those in the low diversity estuaries rates. This kinetic argument is considered to be group (mean = 6,258 ha; SD= 13,411) although the most likely cause of the latitudinal gradient this difference in size was not statistically witnessed in this study. significant. With regard to the latitude of the estuaries, the high diversity estuaries group Influence of temperature included more southern estuaries on average Multiple agencies across the marine field now (mean= 51.08°N; SD= 1.28) than the low record extensive thermal measurements in inshore diversity estuaries group (mean = 52.55 °N; SD= 1.44). All high diversity estuaries excluding waters. The diversity-temperature relationship could be further explored by integrating existing the Dee are the below 51 °N and there is a temperature records with this biological dataset. statistically significant latitudinal difference In supporting the species-energy relationship of between the two estuary diversity groups species richness and latitude, this study suggests (Mann-Whitney W = 35.0, p<0.05). that increases in sea temperatures as a result In contrast to previous studies, the results here of climate change could increase diversity in do not support the species-area hypothesis, estuarine fish species richness in temperate with the size of an estuary not significantly waters. This may also result in increased explaining the variability in species richness abundance although density-dependence across the studied estuaries. has been shown to be a limiting factor on the Of the three estuaries with surface areas greater abundance of sprat in the Bristol Channel. than 20,000ha (Humber, Thames and Severn), the Humber is the only estuary in the high diversity estuaries group.

The latitudinal gradient in diversity has been examined for over two centuries and the attenuation of species diversity as one travels further from the equator has been recorded by multiple authors examining many biota and regions. However, the causal processes that drive this phenomenon remain elusive. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain this phenomenon, which have been grouped into three main categories: phylogenetic niche conservatism, ecological productivity and kinetics.

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Estuaries monitored in present study

Latitude

Debunking Paradigms in Estuarine Fish Species Richness Accumulation curve for pooled data for each of the 27 estuaries studied.

Each curve represents the mean of up to 999 randomisations.

Scatterplot of diversity groups, latitude and size 15

The Role of Managed Re-alignment Schemes as Compensatory Fish Habitat

The Role of Managed Re-alignment Schemes as Compensatory Fish Habitat Medmerry ©Environment Agency

Thomas Stamp of Plymouth University, discusses managed re-alignment and whether it provides compensatory fish habitat.

Saltmarsh provides valuable fish habitat Saltmarsh is known to be an important feeding and nursery habitat for numerous commercially important fish species. Despite the importance of these habitats for fisheries, the majority of estuaries in northern Europe have been heavily adapted by human activities; both by the direct removal or adaptation of intertidal habitat, and indirectly through management of adjacent land causing the introduction of alien/harmful substance e.g. sewage effluent or agricultural pesticides. As a result, it is now estimated that as much as 85% of estuaries in the UK have been heavily affected by land reclamation.

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Significant loss of saltmarsh As part of the Environment Agency’s Water Framework Directive assessment of saltmarsh habitat in England and Wales, the “historical” extent of saltmarsh has been estimated and compared to the current extent. One method used involves spatially defining areas identified as either grazing or saltmarsh from first edition Ordinance Survey maps. Another method involves using LiDAR data to define any coastal land below the highest astronomical tide, that is protected by an artificial flood defence. There is considerable uncertainty surrounding these measurements of historical habitat extent, however, it is estimated that on average 18-67% of saltmarsh habitat has been historically lost in England and Wales, with local estimates ranging from 25-80%.

The Role of Managed Re-alignment Schemes as Compensatory Fish Habitat

Estimated extent of historic land claim, current and “historic” extent of saltmarsh within the Severn estuary, UK. This is shown for illustrative purposes however, it is considered representative of other estuaries within the UK

Aerial photo of Steart Marsh, Somerset © Environment Agency

Managed re-alignment A potential mitigation for saltmarsh habitat loss is the construction of managed re-alignment schemes. Managed re-alignment is a coastal management technique whereby the sea is encouraged to flood low lying coastal land.

Construction design varies between schemes; however, typically a series of drainage channels and ponds are dug out. This process creates new intertidal habitat, which may then develop

into either saltmarsh or mudflat. Managed re-alignment/restored wetland sites in the USA have developed within a few years to resemble those of natural saltmarsh communities, in terms of plant community structure and ecological functioning. However, it has been stated that as a result of high tidal ranges, it may take ≥100 years for managed re-alignment schemes within northern Europe to resemble those of natural salt marsh habitat.

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The Role of Managed Re-alignment Schemes as Compensatory Fish Habitat

Fish captured within managed re-alignment scheme survey.

Left: herring, common and sand gobies, whiting. Right (top): European bass. Right (bottom): flounder or plaice

Steve Colclough, with others, studied fish utilisation of managed re-alignment schemes, and suggested that, in general, managed re-alignment schemes provide valuable habitat for some commercially important fish species.

Such findings are important because as part of the English climate change adaptation strategy, the UK government has committed to â&#x20AC;&#x153;re-alignâ&#x20AC;? 10% of the UK coastline by 2030.

As a result, the construction of managed realignment schemes is likely to increase, and the importance of these novel habitats is of growing interest to fisheries managers.

by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). These managed re-alignment schemes represent the three largest habitat creation schemes in the UK, and were all created around a similar time. Fyke nets were deployed in drainage channels within the managed re-alignment schemes and surrounding/ local natural saltmarsh habitat. Each net was deployed for a minimum period of three tides, and the fish captured checked after each tide.

A small sample of the fish captured was brought back to Plymouth University, where their stomach contents were identified and measured.

From our net catches we were able to see that a broad range of fish species utilised the newly created habitats within the three managed re-alignment schemes. This included commercially important species such as; European bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), grey mullet (Chelon spp.) and herring (Clupea harengus).

Enough individuals of European bass and thinlip

The Devon and Severn Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (D&S IFCA) is particularly interested in the potential benefits managed realignment schemes can provide to commercially important fish species. In particular, the North Atlantic European bass population has been in a state of dramatic decline since 2015. The D&S IFCA is interested in assessing if habitat creation schemes such as managed re-alignment can have a positive impact on local fish populations, such as European bass. In collaboration with the IFCA, a study was designed to investigate which fish were using, and how they were feeding within, a number of managed re-alignment schemes around the UK and to compare this to surrounding natural saltmarsh habitat.

The survey focused on Steart Marsh (managed by the Wetland and Wildfowl Trust), Medmerry Nature Reserve and Wallasea Island (managed 18

Feeding rate (%IR) of thinlip grey mullet (top) European bass (bottom) within natural saltmarsh and managed re-alignment schemes. Bars represent different sample sites surveyed.

grey mullet (Chelon ramada) were captured to investigate differences in feeding rate and diet between managed re-alignment schemes and natural saltmarshes. Results indicated that European bass did not feed as well within managed re-alignment schemes compared to natural saltmarsh, whereas thinlip mullet, which graze on benthic plankton, appeared to feed as well within managed re-alignment schemes as when they were captured in natural saltmarshes.

These results indicate that at the time of sampling, the managed re-alignment schemes included within the study, were providing new habitat for numerous fish species. These habitats however, may not currently provide the same feeding opportunities for predatory fish as surrounding natural saltmarsh. It is however, important to stress that the habitats within managed re-alignment schemes are constantly developing and with further monitoring it will be interesting to see at what stage these novel habitats provide equivalent habitat for fish to the surrounding natural habitat.

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Fish Entrapment in Power Station Cooling Water Systems

Fish Entrapment in Power Station Cooling Water Systems

Seal feeding by Matt Doggett

Hannah Young of Jacobs UK, discusses how to assess the ecological significance to fish populations and their predators of fish entrapment in power station cooling water systems.

Fish entrapment

number of operational UK power stations. The magnitude of entrainment effects is often in the order of millions to trillions of eggs or larvae per year, whilst impingement of juvenile and adult fish combined can reach millions of individuals per year. Intuitively, these numbers appear large and with no context as to what they mean ecologically, it would be easy for regulators to conclude a significant ecological effect on fish populations and their predators.

The removal of fish from aquatic environments via the abstraction of cooling water has long been one of the biggest ecological concerns associated with the operation of direct cooled thermal power stations. This process, termed entrapment, affects early life stages (i.e. fish eggs and larvae) which are entrained through intake screens and subsequently transit the cooling water system, and larger life stages (i.e. juveniles and adults), which become impinged on fine mesh intake screens designed to protect Equivalent Adult Values the cooling water system from the ingress of To permit a holistic assessment of entrapment marine debris. effects (i.e. impingement and entrainment combined), and to provide regulators with the In accordance with Environmental Permitting context they need to more reliably assess the conditions, both the entrainment and ecological significance of fish entrapment, impingement of fish has been quantified for a 20

Loss of food resource to predators and Dietary Equivalence Assessment

Fish Entrapment in Power Station Cooling Water Systems

catches can be converted to Equivalent Adult Values (EAVs). The Equivalent Adult Values concept standardises the biological value of fish of different ages by considering species specific reproductive and mortality rates to estimate the number of larval and juvenile fish that would have survived to reach adulthood had they not been entrapped. Converting Equivalent Adult Values to a biomass then allows the weight of adult equivalents entrapped to be expressed in the context of other anthropogenic pressures which target adult fish specifically, such as commercial fishing activities. Whilst historically this has been the most common use for Equivalent Adult Values, Jacobs has recently been developing this methodology to enable the quantitative assessment of an indirect effect of fish entrapment - the loss of food resource to predators.

indirect effect to higher trophic levels if, for example, the fish predicted to be entrapped were removed from an area considered to be a high intensity feeding ground for predators. In this scenario, displacement of predators and possible effects to population vital rates (e.g. mortality and reproduction) could occur, and further investigation into the resilience of feeding strategies to meet physiological requirements would be required. By integrating Equivalent Adult Values into what Jacobs has termed a Dietary Equivalence Assessment (DEA), larval and juvenile fish which have been entrapped within power station cooling water systems can be quantified in terms of their future potential value as a dietary resource to predators such as sea birds and marine mammals.

Figure 1. outlines the relationship between Equivalent Adult Values and Dietary Equivalence Assessments in more detail. Very simply, a Dietary Equivalence Assessment takes the adult equivalent biomass of larval and juvenile fish, along with the biomass of adult fish predicted to be entrapped, to estimate number of predators or the proportion of the predator

Although there have been previous efforts to quantify the loss of food resource to predators, these are limited and have rarely been applied within environmental assessments.

Consequently, the indirect effect of fish Figure 1. Relationship between Equivalent Adult Values and entrapment to higher trophic levels is often considered on a theoretical or qualitative basis, Dietary Equivalence Assessments relying on the premise that if the direct effect of entrapment Entrapment of adult fish Entrapment of larval and (biomass per annum) juvenile fish on fish populations (number per annum) is demonstrated to Species-specific life be negligible, then history data (e.g. reproductive and indirect effects must mortality parameters) also be negligible and Equivalent Adult Value (EAV) of larval and juvenile fish therefore not significant. (number per annum) However, whilst it may be reasonable Species-specific weight to conclude a non @ 50% maturity significant direct effect if the predicted level Weight of equivalent adults (biomass per annum) of fish mortality from entrapment was considered to fall within the carrying Dietary Equivalent Assesment capacity of wider (i.e number of predators or the proportion of the predator Bioenergetics, dietary populations, this may population that would be sustained annually by the and demographic data biomass of fish prey entrapped) not necessarily translate into a negligible

21

Fish Entrapment in Power Station Cooling Water Systems

Intake screen

population that would have been sustained by the biomass of fish prey had it not been entrapped. This is achieved by taking into consideration within the Dietary Equivalence Assessment, the bioenergetics, diet and demographic characteristics of the predator population. For example, an average sized adult harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) is estimated to consume approximately 3kg of fish prey per day; assuming 1.095 tonnes of fish prey annually. Therefore, if a power station was to entrap four tonnes of fish prey annually, this would equate to the diet of four adult harbour porpoise, or assuming a population size of 2,111 (latest estimate for the North Anglesey Marine candidate Special Area of Conservation), 0.2% of that consumed by the entire population annually.

This example serves to demonstrate the application of a Dietary Equivalence Assessment in its most simplistic form, however this tool can be adjusted to accommodate the availability of input data and has been used to develop project specific assessments drawing upon spatially relevant and temporarily appropriate information, particularly with regards to predator diet and demographic parameters (e.g. abundance and residency within the vicinity of the power station). Much of the necessary information to calculate Equivalent Adult Values and carry out Dietary Equivalence Assessments can be found in literature, although with early consideration, some data can be collected as part of baseline monitoring programmes. It is however, acknowledged that combining data from various data sets leads to inherent uncertainty within the assessment. To address this issue, an 22

Puffin feeding by Matt Doggett

indication of confidence in data quality or quality of assessment (e.g. defined as high, medium or low) should be provided although more rigorous error propagation analysis or sensitivity testing is advised.

A valuable tool The combined Equivalent Adult Values and Dietary Equivalence Assessment is considered to be a valuable tool applicable to assessments for Environmental Permitting conditions and Environmental Impact Assessments. It is also considered particularly useful for Habitats Regulations Assessments (HRA) as Dietary Equivalence Assessment outputs can be considered in relation to the conservation objectives of designated sites to more reliably determine whether the predicted indirect effect of fish entrapment is likely to have a significant effect on their integrity or designated predator species for which they are a qualifying feature.

However, to facilitate the development of more robust and dynamic Dietary Equivalence Assessments capable of examining temporal patterns of food consumption as a result of changes in the size, structure and condition of both predator and prey populations, continued research into the life history of predator and prey species, and the bioenergetics and diet of predators is paramount.

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Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018

Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018 Lawrence Talks, Penobscot River nature-like fishway at Howland Dam

Dr Nigel Milner and Lawrence Talks report back from the 35th NASCO Annual Meeting, which was held in Portland, Maine, USA in June 2018 NASCO (North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation) is an international organisation, established by an inter-governmental Convention in 1984. The objective of NASCO is to conserve, restore, enhance and rationally manage Atlantic salmon through international cooperation taking account of the best available scientific information.

It is structured into three major geographical commissions: North American, West Greenland and North East Atlantic Commissions with parties to the NASCO Convention being Canada, Denmark (in respect of the Faroes and Greenland), the European Union, Norway, the Russian Federation and the USA. A further grouping is formed by Observers from 41 Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), which includes the IFM, co-chaired by Paul Knight of Salmon and Trout Conservation UK and Dr Stephen Sutton of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, Canada.

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State of Atlantic salmon stocks 2017 NASCO formally seeks advice from ICES each year and this is outlined in the ICES Advisory Committee report ICES report 2018 Salmon catches remain low, with 2017 seeing the second lowest in the time series, after 2014. The catch in Southern NEAC (North East Atlantic Commission) has been lower than in the Northern NEAC since 1999. The Southern NEAC area comprises UK, Ireland, France and south and west Iceland. The percentage of 1 Sea-Winter salmon in Southern NEAC in 2017 was notably less than Northern NEAC, though both areas have declining trends in the proportion of 1SW fish in catches.

In 2017, 1SW salmon spawner numbers for England and Wales were assessed as suffering reduced reproductive capacity, whilst MultiSea-Winter salmon were assessed at full

The decline in salmon stocks remains an ongoing concern despite big reductions in fishing effort and is attributed to poorly understood mortality processes in the sea and changes in the marine environment.

Key measures to protect salmon at sea New, more stringent West Greenland 3-year regulatory measure Under a new, multi-annual Regulatory Measure, the West Greenland fishery will remain an internal subsistence fishery only, with no export and no factory landings. The Total Allowable Catch will be restricted to 30t per year (reduction from previous 45t) with any possible over-harvest in one year compensated by a commensurate reduction in catch in the next. In line with a commitment to improve monitoring and control measures, all fishers will now be required to have a licence and report their catches.

New, multi-annual decision for the Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands have agreed not to set a quota for the salmon fishery in the Faroese Fisheries Zone for 2018 / 2019; and this decision will also apply in 2019 / 2020 and 2020 / 2021 unless the application of the Framework of Indicators (FWI) shows that a reassessment is warranted. The FWI will be applied in January 2019 and 2020, and, as previous, will require estimates of counts / returning stock estimates

Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018

reproductive capacity when compared to the national Conservation Limit.

for certain rivers in England & Wales. Denmark (in respect of the Faroe Islands and Greenland) retains the right to conduct a scientific research fishery in the Faroese Fishery.

Annual Progress Reports 2017 and Implementation Plans The England and Wales Annual Progress Report (APR) 2017, on measures to conserve and enhance salmon stocks, was well received

by NASCO and the proposed new regulatory salmon measures were particularly welcomed by the NGOs. The UK (England and Wales) APR can be found: England and Wales APR 2017 .

New Implementation Plans will be required for the period 2019-2024, setting out the management objectives for the annual reporting (APR) requirements. This will be the third IP cycle and these and the associated reporting process are seen as fundamental for advancing NASCOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goals for wild salmon conservation.

They will continue to focus on stock status and catches, the management of salmon fisheries, habitat protection and restoration and aquaculture. Key changes are likely to be a request for SMART targets with quantitative measures of progress. This is a positive opportunity to refresh thinking and goals for salmon, taking on board the Salmon 5-Point Approach.

Scientific research NASCO annually updates a research inventory, which can be found: http://www.nasco.int/sas/ research.htm . Some of the principal projects are described below: 25

26

Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018

Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018 Penobscot River site of removed Veazie Dam 27

Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018

SALSEA-Track: This is NASCO’s flagship research programme, which is crucial to understanding pressures at sea and marine survival. It has been established to identify the migration routes of emigrating post-smolts and to quantify the mortality occurring at different points along the migration route, how this mortality varies from year to year and the factors causing the mortality, e.g. predation, aquaculture or renewable energy installations.

SeaMonitor: This is an INTERREG V application, which aims to investigate the migration of mobile marine species through the use of acoustic tracking technology between Malin Head in Northern Ireland and Islay in Scotland. The total proposed budget is €4.7m with the lead partner being the Loughs Agency who will be working with AFBI, Marine Institute, University of Glasgow, Queens University Belfast, University College Cork, Galway, Mayo Institute of Technology, Ocean Tracking Network (Canada) and UC Davis (California).

SMOLTRACK Project: Recent funding from the EU (administered via NASCO) has enabled a new tracking project to commence involving six rivers to look at smolt movements and mortality in the sea: Ireland – River Erriff, Northern Ireland – River Bush, England – River Tamar, Spain – River Ulla & River Tea and Denmark – River Skjern.

Initial results from across Europe suggest the largest loss is in freshwater rather than the estuary. The causes are unclear though it is suspected that predation plays an important role.

LICETRACK: EU funded project to develop a sea lice model for the sustainable development of Atlantic salmon fisheries and aquaculture.

Expected to be complete in 2019.

use a satellite link to enable data to be retrieved.

It is still in its development phase, with some field testing being progressed. In the Labrador Sea it’s envisaged to use satellite tags and then integrate ROAM technology in 2019/2020.

Likely Suspects Framework: This is a conceptual framework about marine mortality.

This was proposed last year (by Walter Crozier, Atlantic Salmon Trust) as a means to refocus and prioritise research onto the key factors determining salmon losses at stages considered to have most influence on salmon abundance at sea. The emphasis is on partitioning and quantifying the sources of marine phase mortality but, because this adopts a life cycle modelling approach, freshwater factors are also important.

SAMARCH: €5.4m EU Interreg Cross-Channel funding has been secured for an innovative and ground-breaking €7.4m England-France project SAMARCH (SAlmonid MAnagement Round the CHannel), 2017-2022. Led by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, the Environment Agency are full partners in this project, which involves NGOs, academics and statutory authorities on both sides of the English Channel. Through tracking salmon and sea trout smolts through Poole Harbour and the Tamar Estuary in England and the Bresle and Scorff in France, together with tracking sea trout kelts in transitional and inshore waters, amongst other initiatives, this project aims to make a substantial contribution to our knowledge of salmon and sea trout behaviour and help shape measures to protect and enhance these fish stocks at a vulnerable part of their seaward migration.

The Missing Salmon Project: The Atlantic Salmon Trust are seeking funding to support a major new tracking investigation in NE Scotland. This project aims to address issues such as: ‘What are the migration pathways ROAM (RAFOS Ocean Acoustic Monitoring) our smolts use?’ ‘How do we quantify the Project: Relies on the long-range transmission major impacts on their mortality during of sound signals (‘pongs’) from sea-bed their migration?’ and ‘How to improve their transmitters. Tags mounted on fish would be survival rate so more fish return?’ For more able to receive the signals from various sources information: http://www.atlanticsalmontrust.org/ to determine their position. The system has themissingsalmonproject/ the potential to enable ocean wide tracking of https://www.facebook.com/ salmon, but tags would have to be recovered or TheMissingSalmonProject/ 28

Catch and release of Atlantic salmon varies considerably across countries, from 15% in Sweden to 90% in Scotland, which reflects varying management practices and angler attitudes.

Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018

Emerging threats and opportunities

International Year of The Salmon: salmon and people in a changing world.

The aim of the International Year of the Salmon is to protect Disease is a concern for the health of salmon salmon by bringing stocks. Red vent syndrome continues to people together to share be monitored by the Environment Agency in knowledge, raise public England. In Sweden there is an undiagnosed awareness and take action. Key objectives are: disease affecting salmon. A Gyrodactylus salaris Connection, Knowledge and Action and key eradication programme continues in Norway, themes are described below: whilst in Russia two new rivers were confirmed to have Gyrodactylus salaris. In Norway 1. Status of salmon: to understand the present investigations continue into the management of status of salmon and their environments. sea lice from aquaculture.

2. Salmon in a changing salmosphere: to Poor juvenile recruitment was observed in many understand and quantify the effects of natural rivers in England and Wales in 2016, which is environmental and anthropogenic factors on likely to impact on smolt numbers and returning salmon distribution and abundance and to adults on a number of rivers. project future changes.

In Eastern Canada, striped bass are extending their range and there are concerns about predation pressure on salmon smolts.

Pink salmon were observed across the North Atlantic in 2017 at previously unrecorded levels.

A risk assessment has been developed for the UK. Various studies have been undertaken and are ongoing to investigate possible bycatch by pelagic fisheries. For example, a screening programme on Icelandic mackerel fisheries has found 847 salmon since 2010.

A working group on the effectiveness of recovery actions for Atlantic salmon has found that the improvements that deliver the most benefit are: improving river connectivity, water quality and habitat restoration.

3. New Frontiers: to develop new technologies and analytical methods to advance salmon science and explore the uncharted regions of the salmosphere.

4. Human Dimension: to investigate the cultural, social and economic elements that depend upon sustainable salmon populations.

5. Information Systems: to develop an integrated archive of accessible electronic data collected during IYS and tools to support future research.

The target audiences are: decision makers, public, children/youth and knowledgeable public.

Key dates and activities agreed so far include: • IYS Website 2018 • Hemispheric Ministerial/Minister Equivalent IYS launch = October 2018 • State of Salmon Report (based on the NASCO Rivers Database) = Spring 2019 • NASCO IYS Symposium (Tromso, Norway) = June 2019

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Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018

Site visits Penobscot River Restoration Project The Penobscot is the largest river in Maine with a catchment area (8,750 sq mls) greater than the size of Wales and ¼ of the state of Maine.

It used to have phenomenal runs of many migratory fish species, including Atlantic salmon, river blueback herring, alewife, American shad, American eel, sturgeon and sea lamprey.

Restoring herring and alewives is as important as salmon, as they are crucially important for the trophic dynamics and ecosystem functioning of rivers and the coastal zone.

Overcoming significant opposition and securing significant resources, the Penobscot River Restoration project has so far bought and removed two large dams (Great Works in 2012 and Veazie in 2016) and created a large naturelike fishway at Howland Dam in 2016.

Fish immediately started to use the improved access to 1,000 miles of historic habitat with American shad increasing from zero to 8,000, river herring to about 2 million, though salmon numbers remain low at about 800 a year.

Benefits include: • The restored ecological function of marine nutrient subsidy has started to benefit terrestrial plant and animals. NOAA is doing research into the greatly changed nutrient budgets.

• Revitalised the Indian Nation’s culture and traditions.

• New opportunities for recreational tourism and local community development.

• Has resolved longstanding conflicts, giving stability to the previously uncertain issues of river regulation and the needs of communities.

• Hydropower generation has been maintained by investment at other HEP plants in Maine.

Many outstanding issues remain, including the legacy of ‘log drives’ which decimated river morphology turning naturally very diverse structured habitats into over-wide canal like channels. It is worth noting that virtually ALL of the historical forests of Maine were cleared by logging in the 19th and early 20th centuries with 30

the present day extensive forests (and Maine is essentially one massive forest!) mostly all regrowth following that clear felling.

Trip to DownEast Salmon Federation and the Peter Gray Hatchery Whilst on leave, Nigel Milner and I visited the DownEast Salmon Federation’s Peter Gray Hatchery on the East Machias River and learnt more about their work to restore Maine’s Atlantic salmon populations. Nigel was invited to give a talk about the Tyne and the role of Kielder hatchery. Given the status of the Atlantic salmon stocks, the Peter Gray hatchery is essentially run as a life-support activity to try and maintain some level of Atlantic salmon population in the river and to garner political and community interest in restoring salmon populations which are on the brink of extirpation. They run a school’s programme, have open days and organise other events.

Alongside the hatchery, the DownEast Salmon Federation are actively engaged in an impressive range of catchment management initiatives from increasing forested buffer zones to reducing potential impacts from intensive agricultural activity such as extensive blueberry farms, dam removal, temperature investigations, habitat restoration, etc. High water temperature is a particular problem.

We would both like to thank Dwayne Shaw, Executive Director of the DownEast Salmon Federation, and his colleagues who made us feel so welcome during our visit in Maine.

Report from 35th NASCO Annual Meeting 2018 Peter Gray Hatchery DownEast salmon Federation 31

The Conservation Column

The Conservation Column Valerie Holt reflects on the importance of intertidal zones.

For ecologists, the most interesting sections of coastline are the areas between the highest and lowest tides, known as intertidal zones. These estuarine habitats represent only a very small proportion of the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface but they are important because they are regions in which two very different types of environment meet, and in which a complex web of interactions takes place.

as in front of sea defences, pollution, dredging and sedimentation and from projects such as barrages to produce energy.

Intertidal zones are home to many species of birds but are also important for molluscs such as whelks and mussels, prawns and seaweed. Seaweed has formed the basis of small industries. Red algae are used in the manufacture of jellies, including agar.

Typical habitats found in an estuary include sand Irish moss is a source of carageenans, which can be turned into blancmanges and jellies. banks, mudflats, sand flats and salt marshes Kelp can be dried and burnt to produce an and, in coastal areas sand dunes, coastal alkaline ash used in the production of soap and lagoons, shallow inlets and bays, reefs and sandy beaches. Much of this type of habitat in glass. It can also be used to produce alginates the UK is protected under the Habitats Directive. used in toothpaste, puddings and even beer.

Numerous bird species breed in estuarine and coastal habitats and these are protected under There are many designated conservation areas around our coastline and one important site is the Birds Directive. the Ribble Estuary. The River Ribble is one of As the UK is an island, we are fortunate to the longest rivers in the North West of England and is the seventh largest estuary in the UK. It have many estuaries that provide these most rises in the Yorkshire Dales and flows west for important and unique habitats, but they can over 68 miles to the Irish Sea. It becomes tidal be under threats from coastal squeeze, such 32

The mouth of the estuary is 10 miles wide and it is home to around 340,000 over-wintering water birds, making it the most important wetland site in Britain. The wildlife habitats are protected by a series of nature reserves, SSSIs and it is a designated Ramsar site. The estuary supports the highest UK populations of wigeon, sanderling and ringed plover.

The Ribble Estuary National Nature Reserve occupies over half of the estuary and includes extensive areas of mud and sand flats and supports ducks, geese, swans and wading birds and is internationally important for 16 species of wintering birds. During summer, nesting sites of common tern, redshank, skylark, meadow pipit, linnet and several species of gull can be found.

The reserve can be accessed from Southport and Lytham St Annes.

In 2001 a range of organisations, compromising local conservation bodies, governmental, local authority and community interests, and which included RSPB, Environment Agency and Natural England began exploring the possibility of the area becoming a Regional Park. A business plan from 2008 quoted:

The Conservation Column

approximately 11 miles from the sea, upstream of Preston. The river marked the ancient northern boundary of Mercia.

can be seen. The first ever sighting of a pallid harrier in Lancashire was from here.

In 2017 it was announced that a scheme to strengthen and raise sea defences to protect properties and farmland would create a new nature reserve. The Environment Agency said the ÂŁ6 million project would create hundreds of acres of salt marsh providing further habitat for avocets, blacktailed godwits and pink-footed geese. The site will link to the existing RSPB reserve at Hesketh Out and the new area will be managed

by RSPB and Natural England.

The Ribble Estuary is one example of a complex range of habitats found in the intertidal zone in the UK and not only is it of prime importance to wildlife but plays a role in the wider scope of flood protection and the recreational use of water and the coastline.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;By 2020 the Ribble Coast and Wetlands will be an internationally recognised destination based on its environmental significance which will be conserved and enhanced.â&#x20AC;?

The partnership has looked at the socioeconomic benefits of a park and today is working with local landowners and businesses within the park area to shape a green infrastructure for Lancashire, including coastal access.

As well as its importance for birds, the sand dunes on both sides of the estuary are home to the rare natterjack toad, lizards and rare insects and a collection of diverse plant species.

Upstream of Preston a new nature reserve has been created by Lancashire Wildlife Trust from a former quarry site. Brockholes is situated alongside the River Ribble and is a family friendly site where a host of birds, plants and animals 33

The IFM Diploma Our flagship Diploma course continues to grow in popularity year on year and is widely recognised within the industry as a comprehensive and relevant qualification.

The IFM Diploma is aimed at people with some knowledge and interest in fish and fisheries.

These could typically be accomplished anglers, members of angling clubs, industry professionals and consultants wishing to gain further knowledge. Our student intake varies, from those that are looking to run their own fishery, to professional people such as medical consultants and airline pilots. We also have a regular number of armed forces personnel looking to retrain before leaving the services.

What really sets our course apart is the flexibility and the ability for students to study for an industry recognised and accredited qualification alongside their current work and family balance.

Even though the course is distance learning, students arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t left feeling isolated. All students are provided with a comprehensive tool box.

This comprises: course outlines; tutor and mentor contact details to ensure students are fully supported; and student handbooks, outlining assessments and deadlines as well as reading resources and web links. There is also web community support available via LinkedIn.

In short, we believe in enabling students to succeed whilst ensuring they advance their knowledge.

The course extends over two years, with freshwater biology, fisheries management, fishery law and environmental management covered in one year, and fish husbandry, fish disease, water quality and recreation and amenity in the other year. In order to enable students to augment their theoretical knowledge with some practical skills, we hold short weekend field courses in October of each year. Here they can experience fish surveys, netting, electric fishing and fish health practical exercises as well as the opportunity to meet other students and the IFM team.

The qualification is set at Level 5/6 (Foundation degree level) and our minimum requirement for students enrolling on this course is a Level 3 (A level, IFM Certificate) qualification and some fisheries experience.

If you are interested in joining the many successful students that have completed our prestigious Diploma course then donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hesitate to get in touch with the course manager, Iain Turner at iain.turner@ifm.org.uk for more details or an informal chat.

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35

The Paul Coulson BLOG

The Paul Coulson

BLOG

36

The Paul Coulson BLOG

As you will have seen from the articles in the magazine, we held our 8th Annual Specialist Conference in May at Lancaster University. This was our first conference dedicated purely to marine waters and over 50 delegates gathered together for two days of talks and networking.

This was held at the start of the current heatwave so lots of networking took place outside of the conference centre in glorious sunshine.

The presentations as always were excellent and covered a wide range of topics from the introduction of the Manila clam, the wrasse fishery in the South West and the use of student derived data for marine monitoring. As always with our specialist events, the discussions both in, and outside, of the conference form a valuable part of the event. I would like to thank all of the speakers and delegates for taking the time to attend. I hope you enjoy the articles from the conference and if you would like to see all presentations from the event they are on our website.

We have to say a big thank you to RS Aqua and Vemco for their kind sponsorship of the conference. We also have to thank Steve Colclough and the Estuarine and Marine Specialist Section for all their help and guidance in putting the conference together.

Moving from salty water back to the fresh stuff, we joined with colleagues at the Angling Trust in June to host a workshop on otter predation at Barston Lakes. This is an issue that is at the top

of the list of problems for many fisheries and one on which we felt some clarity was needed, some clarity on as there is a lot of misinformation out there.

We were very lucky to be able to gather together a number of experts from organisations including the Environment Agency, Defra, UK Wild Otter Trust, Cardiff University and the Carp Society, as well as a number of representatives from fisheries and fish farms.

Talks throughout the day ranged from rivers to stillwaters and we had some very constructive discussions between all the parties gathered.

We have recently released the final report and next steps from the workshop. This, as well as the presentations from the day, can be found on our website (https://ifm.org.uk/ifm-andangling-trust-otter-workshop-programme-andpresentations/) I must say a big thank you to Martin Salter and James Champkin of the Angling Trust for all their help and support in bringing the workshop together.

Planning for our 49th Annual Conference continues at a pace and we now have an outline programme for our main event. This can be found on our website along with registration details. The conference has an international flavour this year, with presentations from America, China, Bangladesh and Ireland.

37

The Paul Coulson BLOG

Not only have we put together a very interesting and diverse programme, but we also have some excellent field trips and networking events. The highlight, of course, is the annual dinner which will be held at The Deep aquarium on the banks of the Humber. We also have a poster and networking event planned at the East Yorkshire Brewery at the Marina and I’m sure we can find a venue for the now traditional pre-conference curry.

anglers worldwide, as well as estimates of the number of fish caught each year (47 billion if you’re interested) as well as those released (30 billion or 63%).

I also spent a day with the Midlands Branch recently looking at venues for next year’s 50th Anniversary Conference. The branch have some exciting plans for this very special occasion and it is certainly a conference you don’t want to miss.

Cornwall Capers

It was a real eye opener, and reminded me that we sometimes forget how big recreational angling is, as well as the socio-economic benefits it brings. We can also overlook the impact that taking fish for the table can have on a population and how this also needs to be factored in when We look forward to welcoming you to Hull in looking at the management of a recreational (rod October. I’m doing very competitive B&B rates at and line) fishery. my house if anyone is interested?

Away from our own events, I managed to find the time to attend a couple of days of the FSBI Conference in early July. This was held the University of East Anglia in their unique Enterprise Centre, which is Britain’s greenest building.

The presentations were excellent and of a very high standard throughout. The highlight for me however, was the opening Jack Jones Memorial Lecture presented by Professor Steven Cooke of Carleton University in Canada. The subject of the lecture was sustainable and responsible recreational angling. Tim had some really interesting figures on the numbers of recreational 38

We had a family holiday shortly after the specialist conference and undertook the epic drive from East Yorkshire to Padstow for a week. It was our first extended trip down to the south west and we had a great time.

The weather was perfect apart from one day of rain, which happened to be the day we decided to visit the Eden Project. On arriving it appeared that everyone else in Cornwall had the same idea as it took us almost two hours to get in! As you can imagine with two small children in tow this didn’t go down too well, needless to say the packed lunch and sweets stash was gone before we got through the door.

It was a very impressive place and well worth the wait. I do think the children expected it to be

The Paul Coulson BLOG

a bit like a safari park and they were both a bit rescues taking place on vanishing rivers disappointed to not see monkeys swinging from making the national news, you have to worry the trees and snakes hanging from the branches. about the long-term impacts of this heatwave on the fish populations, particularly the more I didn’t manage to get any surfing in on this sensitive salmonids. occasion, though I did squeeze myself into an ill-fitting wetsuit (it was a ladies, don’t ask) for Let’s hope it rains soon. a spot of body boarding. I’m pretty sure the highlight of the holiday for the children was watching me trying to extricate myself from said Nettle update wetsuit without any assistance.

She (the dog) is still destroying stuff and My fishing over the last couple of months has digging holes in amounted to three hours chasing seriously uninterested carp around a Midlands estate lake. my garden!

The fact it was 28ºC, and the lake looked as dead as a Dodo, didn’t deter me from sweating my wotsits off as I trudged around trying to tempt them with a dog biscuit and deftly placed piece of free-lined bread. Five mosquito bites and a burnt neck later I called it a day and went to watch the football.

Paul Coulson - Director of Operations As I write this it is 25ºC in Hull and has been for paul.coulson@ifm.org.uk five consecutive days, we have also had a couple 07960 939 836 of days of 27ºC and 28ºC to contend with. As nice as it is to be able to work in the garden and wear shorts every day, we are in desperate need of some rain. The rivers and ponds near me just look dead and the surrounding land is brown.

When you are seeing fish

Tight lines.

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IFM News

IFM News Event

Date

Location

49th Annual Conference: Thriving or Surviving â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Creating Resilient Fisheries

16th to 18th October 2018

Hull Guildhall

Yorkshire Branch Tour of the River Aire

Saturday September 22nd 9.30 - 16.00

Leeds

For further details on up and coming events: www.ifm.org.uk/events

Summary and Key Outputs from the Otter Predation Workshop On the 8th June 2018 the Angling Trust and 5. The Angling Trust and IFM will press for the Institute of Fisheries Management held a clarification regarding the legalities of scaring or workshop at Barston Lakes in the Midlands for disturbing an otter as a result of either protecting academics, Defra, the Environment Agency and a legitimate business or installing instream fisheries and angling groups to discuss otter habitat enhancements. predation, the impacts of the growing numbers of 6. All agreed that more action was needed to deal otters on fisheries and to enable assessment of with the issues affecting recruitment of river fish: impacts and identification of actions to pollution, abstraction, habitat damage, barriers minimise them. to fish migration. A more healthy fish population Key outputs included: would be better placed to withstand the impacts of otter predation.

1. The Angling Trust and IFM will produce a guide for angling clubs and fishery managers setting 7. The Environment Agency is planning a series out the legal situation, correcting some of the of workshops and a conference around misunderstandings around releases and captive management of stillwater fisheries over the bred otters and what can be done to protect coming year that will provide guidance around fish stocks against otter predation. designing resilience to predation.

3. The Angling Trust will lobby the government for the long-term regulation of the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned otters and a Code of Conduct in the short-term.

4. The Angling Trust and IFM will press for further research to be commissioned into deterrents for unfenceable waters.

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Š Jrleyland i-stock

2. The Angling Trust and IFM will request the statutory agencies to streamline the consent processes for permitting otter fencing on still waters and press for an increase in funding.

IFM News Š Jrleyland i-stock

A more healthy fish population would be better placed to withstand the impacts of otter predation.

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IFM News

recommending strongly that the UK remains in REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation The Environmental Policy Forum (EPF) is a and Restriction of Chemicals) rather than trying network of UK environmental professional bodies to create a parallel and potentially expensive and and learned societies promoting environmental ineffective UK system. EPF in response to new sustainability and resilience for the public benefit. waste and recycling figures by Defra warned The EPF’s member bodies, of which the IFM is that the UK government must set ambitious and one, have a collective membership of around legally-binding targets to deal with our growing 70,000 environmental professionals, many of ‘packaging and waste mountain.’ Overall whom are individually chartered in environmental recycling rates have increased only very slightly practice, science and engineering disciplines. in 2016 to 44.6% from 44.3% in 2015 and more than half of the recycled waste ends up in landfill The EPF has written to a number of peers or is destroyed – in all over 51 million tonnes. expressing concerns about the future regulation The EPF is scrutinising every element of the of chemicals in the UK post-Brexit and government’s EU Withdrawal Bill.

Heatwave continues to cause problems for fish.

With hosepipe bans coming into force from August for some parts of the UK, it’s not only gardens that are beginning to suffer from the prolonged heat wave affecting the UK. Many rivers and reservoirs are at very low levels, with the Environment Agency reporting that river flows are below normal for the time of year at nearly two-thirds of indicator sites.

The River Teme in the Midlands has recently dried up completely in stretches, leading to fish rescue operations. Many other rivers have also suffered, and similar fish rescues have taken place.

The low water levels and flows have exacerbated pollution incidents, making them particularly lethal, and there have been many reports of fish kills recently.

Many canals have also reported problems.

There are boating bans in sections of the Leeds & Liverpool canal, as lock usage is adding to the depletion of water.

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Photo by Harry Grout on Unsplash

Environmental Policy Forum

IFM News

‘Lost’ rivers of London to help tackle climate change.

Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash

Plans are being drawn up to investigate whether many of the ‘lost’ underground rivers of London could be used to power the capital. With many of the tributaries of the River Thames and Lea running in culverts beneath the city, companies are investigating the feasibility of sinking heat source pumps in them to help power many of the buildings that lie above.

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IFM News

Training Report We have had a busy couple of months in IFM Training which has included delivering a new course, exams and LOTS of marking on the numerous courses we now run.

We have recently started delivery of a new course in Water Quality and Pollution for staff from Thames Water. This is a bespoke course written in conjunction with staff from the Environmental Compliance and Waste Water teams at Thames Water. The course is delivered along the same lines and level as the Diploma. We hope to roll this course out further in the future.

Our own electric fishing course will be held on October 13th and 14th. If you are interested in attending, all the details are on the website.

In early June we had our second round of Certificate Course exams for the year. In total over 40 students sat papers which was a record since the relaunch of the course.

The first group of students on the IFM Award Course will also be graduating in September.

This course is run for staff from the Environment Agency and takes them two years to complete.

The final piece of work is their project and we are looking forward to receiving some interesting pieces of work.

Following the exams, we are pleased to announce that the following students have now completed the course.

Douglas Bullock

Anna Katkowska

Calum Hislop

Paul Martin

Alex Fox

Sean Coleman

Dr Justyna Olszewska

Nick McDonald

Lorraine Rowe

Mark Squires

Rebecca Chen

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Once the team get back from summer holidays we will be back on the road again. We will be delivering another electric fishing training course for the North York Moors National Park in August, quickly followed by a course for the Mersey Rivers Trust.

The weekend before this we will be holding the annual Diploma field course weekend. This year we will be back with the great team at the EA Fish Health Laboratories at Brampton.

We have also confirmed with the Environment Agency that we will be running another round of the Fishery Management Workshops this coming winter. The first round of six were very well received and we will be covering another six areas this time round. We are also planning a one-off weed management workshop to be held somewhere in the north of the country.

If you have any specialist training teams we would love to work with you, so please get in touch.

IFM News

Branch news Yorkshire and N.E Branch Yorkshire and N.E Branch are holding a tour of the River Aire on 27th September 2018, full details can be found on the branch page on the website.

IFM London and SE Branch Our last talk, a joint meeting with CIWEM in May, was given by Martin Slater (Environment Agency) on ‘Our Rivers Recovery & Renewal Returning salmon to Yorkshire’s post-industrial rivers’. Martin unfolded an inspiring story of the successes of multi-faceted approaches and on-going actions to return salmon and other species to their historic spawning grounds in Yorkshire rivers. Very informative and pragmatic, generating a lot of discussion!

This summer, on 9th August we are repeating an old favourite, an evening visit exploring the archaeology of the tidal Thames foreshore, led

by Fiona Haughey. This evening amble along the South Bank at low tide will explore the history and fisheries of the tidal Thames through the perspective of surface artefacts and archaeology of the foreshore. The visit ends up (of course!) at a suitable hostelry, overlooking the river.

Later summer events include Branch inputs to the Thames Tidefest on 1st September and a conducted visit (in planning) to the depths of the Natural History Museum, looking at fish and other historical items not normally seen by the public.

The next evening meeting is our prestigious Annual Sherry Evening on 2nd October at a new venue, King’s College in the old Bush House on Aldwych. In addition to a delicious buffet and wines, Jon Copley will be giving a presentation on the filming of the Blue Planet TV series.

On 7th November, we repeat another annual favourite at King’s College, an eclectic mix of presentations on recent University of London postgraduate projects, arranged by Mike Chadwick of KCL.

Branch Contacts If you want more information on IFM activities in your region, please contact the branch secretaries through the email addresses below: East Anglia: Andrew Sadler

andrew.sadler@environment-agency.gov.uk

Ireland: Art Niven Art.Niven@loughs-agency.org London & South East: Steve Colclough srcifm@gmail.com Midlands/Lincolnshire: Ryan Taylor ryan.taylor@environment-agency.gov.uk North West: Paul Coulson paul.coulson@ifm.org.uk South West: Iain Turner swest@ifm.org.uk Southern: Iain Turner

iain.turner@ifm.org.uk

Scotland: Lorraine Hawkins lorraine@riverdee.org Wales: Emma Keenan

emma.keenan@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

Yorkshire & North East: Mike Lee

michael.lee@environment-agency.gov.uk

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Breaking News

Breaking News

Ecosystems (VMEs) which have been approved by a group of international Antarctic scientists for special local protection.

Bournemouth University team hit significant milestone in saving iconic fish from extinction

Breaching True’s beaked whales

Rare whale sighting stuns conservation experts and wows ferry passengers ORCA, one of the UK’s leading marine conservation charities, confirmed this week that a group of four True’s beaked whales were spotted and photographed in the Bay of Biscay just north of Santander on Wednesday 4th July.

Hump-backed mahseer © John Bailey

The hump-backed mahseer, native to South India and one of the world’s most iconic freshwater fish, has been given a scientific name in a race to save the species from extinction.

Four of the animals surfaced around 50m away from a Brittany Ferries ship travelling from 145 years after being first popularised by the Portsmouth to Santander. This sighting came publication of H.S. Thomas’s classic A Rod in during a wildlife photography trip ORCA was delivering in partnership with Jessops Academy. India in 1873, the hump-backed mahseer has been allocated a scientific name - Tor remadevii - as a key step in trying to save this highly threatened species from extinction.

Being capable of exceeding lengths of 1.5 metres and body weights of 55 kg, this freshwater giant qualifies as megafauna, yet has until recently avoided the attention of ichthyologists and remained a taxonomic enigma to the scientific world.

Submarine image of the seabed in the Antarctic © Greenpeace

Vulnerable ecosystems revealed in Antarctic seafloor dives to receive protection Research submarine dives to the Antarctic seafloor, carried out during a Greenpeace expedition to the Antarctic in January, have identified four separate Vulnerable Marine 46

This giant member of the carp family has been known to anglers around the globe as ‘one of the largest and hardest fighting freshwater game fish in the world’, but due to a restricted natural distribution and a range of escalating environmental pressures, the survival of the species is currently uncertain.

Breaking News

Shad project wins achievement prize A study on shad carried out by fish specialists APEM for Dwr Cymru Welsh Water has been named data project of the year in the Water Industry Achievement Awards 2018.

The cutting-edge study involved teams from across APEM collecting new data on shad ecology, carrying out innovative field surveys, aerial surveying and drone surveying, and developing digital and ecological modelling that are the first of their kind.

The project demonstrated successful and innovative collection and handling of environmental data in a new multi-disciplinary way, to answer challenging environmental assessment requirements.

can be used to move the business forward.

It was impressive how data was harnessed from different sources and then presented very accessibly.”

The study enabled the project partners to make an evidence-based agreement on new It is the second time in five years that a project conditions for a water abstraction licence, involving APEM has been recognised by the ensuring that it did not have an adverse impact Water Industry Achievement Awards. either upon the shad population in the long-term or upon designated site integrity.

The award judges commented: “The project really showed how data is a resource that

APEM we’re fascinated fish. That’s why we’re

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49th IFM Annual Conference Hull Guildhall, October 16th – 18th, 2018 “ Thriving or Surviving – Creating Resilient Fisheries ” Join us for three days of presentations, posters, field trips and networking in 2017’s City of Culture Conference sessions will focus on: • Mitigation and recovery • Sustainable exploitation of fisheries • Climate change • Resilient environments and renewable energies • Societal impacts and engagement • Fisheries that are bucking the trend • Resilient fisheries • Future proofing fisheries The Annual Dinner will be held at The Deep Aquarium and there is also a poster and networking session on the Marina.

The Yorkshire and North East Branch look forward to welcoming you to Hull in October Registration now open on the website www.ifm.org.uk 48

fish tracking and monitoring equipment

Study Behaviour and Migration of Animals VEMCO is the world leader in the design and manufacture of underwater acoustic telemetry monitoring and tracking systems used by researchers around the world for behaviour, migration and positioning studies of aquatic animals in fresh and saltwater environments.

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lakes

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Active Tracking â&#x20AC;˘ Passive Monitoring â&#x20AC;˘ Fine Scale Positioning The VEMCO product line includes various types and sizes of acoustic transmitters (pingers and sensor tags with integral pressure, temperature and accelerometers), automated receivers for long term behavioural studies, high-resolution positioning capabilities information, and temperature data loggers.

The VEMCO Positioning System (VPS) uses off-the-shelf receivers and tags to conduct fine scale positioning studies.

With over 20,000 VR2W receivers deployed worldwide, researchers can collaborate and share data.

Coded transmitters range in size from 5mm to 16mm diameter. Even smaller tags are currenty under development.

Tel: 01730 828222 Email: info@rsaqua.co.uk Web: www.rsaqua.co.uk Exclusive distributor of VEMCO equipment in the UK and Ireland

49

Book Review

Book Review Guide to the Manta and Devil Rays of the World

By Guy Stevens, Daniel Fernando, Marc Dando and Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara Manta and devil rays are some of the most charismatic creatures in the ocean. Born into a life of perpetual motion, these rays must keep swimming to survive. Driven forward by powerful beats of their wing-like pectoral fins, these filter feeding rays search the ocean currents for prey, their horn-like cephalic (head) fins giving rise to ancient marinersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; tales of fearsome devilfish dragging boats into the depths. Beloved by scuba divers and marine biologists alike, these impressive animals have never had a comprehensive field guide dedicated to Guide to the Manta and Devil Rays them â&#x20AC;&#x201C; until now. of the World The Guide to the Manta and Devil Rays of the World includes detailed information on the identification, characteristics, threats and distribution for each of the species within this family of rays. Illustrated with over 200 beautiful colour photos, drawings and plates, this guide also contains an expansive introduction packed full of useful information on the general taxonomy, biology and behaviour of these iconic animals.

This book will be an invaluable field companion for any scientist, diver or marine enthusiast who has an interest in these fascinating creatures. It is an essential resource for fisheries management, international trade enforcement, and for anyone wanting to become involved in the ongoing efforts to research and conserve this threatened family of rays.

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By Guy Stevens, Daniel Fernando, Marc Dando and Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara Publication by: Wild Nature Press Guide to the Manta and Devil Rays of the World Date: 14th May 2018 ISBN 9780995567399 Paperback with gatefolds, 144pp Cost: ÂŁ13.50

Fish and eel pass design, fabrication and installation, including full CAD capabilities Tidal gate fish passage mitigation, including design, fabrication and installation of bespoke dampers and spring retarders Fisheries assessments and surveys, including PHABSIM studies, electro-fishing, quantitative mapping, advanced quantitative experimental design, migration and barrier studies Fisheries monitoring and R&D, including pit-tagging, DIDSON/ARIS & camera monitoring, telemetry studies, field-based experiments and product development Fisheries impact assessments of hydropower installations and appropriate mitigation measures In-house civil construction design and project management

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Members and their FISH

Paul Johnston with a pink salmon from the Squamish River, British Columbia in Sept 2017

Do you have a picture of yourself with a fish?

If so FISH would like to hear from you.

Send your images to: fish@ifm.org.uk