26th October : The first big spate of the season brings the prospect of fish in the trout traps. These start operation on or around the 1st of October, but without spates, little comes up the small burns they are on. Big spates mean two people at the traps, so the plan for the morning changed and I went out with my assistant Fiona, whose week it is to be on trap duty for Peebles. There had indeed been a good spate overnight, a mass of leaves needed clearing and the first fish of the season were indeed in the trap - three Brown-trout males, the largest 220mm, the other two at 195mm. All were mature and ready for spawning - this is found by gently pressing the belly just in front of the vent and seeing if some white Milt is expressed. The usual pattern, when fish are not held up for lack of water, is for the males to get upstream first and wait for the females on the spawning beds. When water is high and it is likely that fish are running, traps are visited twice daily, once in the morning and once at the end of the day (which also makes sure the trap is clean and at maximum efficiency for dusk, which is peak period for fish to run). Trips to Peebles on Thursday mornings have the added advantage that the market is on that day - and the butcher's stall there is a particularly good source of ham bones for the soup that is needed when working fish traps. The water temperature is not bad at present, but when there's ice on the traps, good, hot soup is a necessity. The afternoon has been spent in the office, report writing and getting a talk ready to give to the River Spey Anglers Association next Thursday night in Elgin : subject "What is Fisheries Management ?".
27th October : Today being a Friday, there is the weekly morning staff meeting. This is made up of Andrew Douglas-Home, the Chairman of both the River Tweed Commissioners (RTC) and the The Tweed Foundation; Nick Yonge, Clerk to the RTC and Director of The Tweed Foundation; Tony Coleman the Bailiff Superintendent of the RTC; Fay Heiatt the Administrator for both organisations and myself. This is when the week ahead is discussed and plans laid and is the co-ordination mechanism for the two organisations. The main topic that arises this week is a frequent one - how to improve communication with anglers, boatmen and others on the river. Fridays are "Admin" days for me when I try to deal with that side of my work. In the afternoon, I compose and print out some certificates giving the results of the readings of scales sent in by anglers -it takes a bit longer to do these days as I am (rather slowly) getting to grips with a new method of presentation. Our new digital scale-reading equipment means that I can actually put pictures of scales, with annotations, on these certificates (which we've sent out for years) but learning the new procedure slows everything down. Next item is trying to find out how exactly in London I get to a meeting I'm going to on Tuesday. This is hosted by the DEFRA Non-native Species Secretariat and is on a Non-native strategy for the UK. I'll actually be representing RAFTS (Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland) at this meeting rather than just the Tweed. As I can't get any answer from the contact phone numbers given for the meeting location, I have to go on to the Web to make myself a map of how to get there. To end the day, I will have a fish counter ID session with James checking through the pictures from the new Gala fish counter. Its going to be of particular interest as we really have no idea of what goes up the Gala Water, there being no Salmon fisheries there.
30th October : Most of today was spent trying to comprehend and then come up with responses to a pile of paperwork from central government agencies and departments. It really is incredible how much time is taken up by this sort of thing - and it seems to be increasing. So, nothing useful done for the Tweed today.
31st October : Up at 4 am for the 6.45am flight down to London, to attend a meeting on the Non-native Invasive Species Strategy being formulated by the Non-native Species Secretariat within DEFRA. I'm attending this as a representative of RAFTS (Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland - the umbrella group for all the fishery trusts in Scotland) rather than as a Tweed Foundation or RTC rep.This Secretariat is a new organisation within government with the remit of devising an all-Britain strategy for the control of alien species. Biosecurity, it seems, is moving up the government agenda - and not before time. Invasions by alien species are the greatest threat to our natural heritage after climatechange and the potential for disruption is enormous. Signal Crayfish are in the news today, but just about anything could arrive tomorrow as trade and travel become easier and more globalized. Biosecurity hasn't been a big issue here, but I did my doctorate in New Zealand, at the Unversity of Otago and so lived there for several years in the 1970's and thus have a very good idea what alien species can do to a country - forget the NZ tourism adverts on telly at present - New Zealand is an ecological disaster area. As my old supervisor in the Zoology Dept at Otago used to say "what people took 3,000 years to destroy in Europe, they've destroyed in 150 years in New Zealand". As the British colonists in the 19th century didn't find New Zealands plants and animals of much interest, they set up "Acclimatisation Societies" to introduce whatever plants and animals they though might be useful or ornamental from all over the world - Deer, Chamois, Rabbits, Himalayan Thar, Salmon, Trout and many others - even Red Grouse - were brought it. Heather was planted in the hills of the North Island for the grouse and in the 1920's, there was even some Grouse shooting. Of course, all these introductions devastated the native plants and animals and in New Zealand today it is possible to stand on some high point and look round 360 degrees and see not a single native plant or animal. Scotland isn't as bad as that - yet, but we are definitely going in that direction. Our hills are covered in American trees (Sitka Spruce), our lochs have American fish (Rainbow Trout) in them, there are American (Grey) squirrels in our trees; American Mink along the banks of our rivers - and now, American (Signal) Crayfish in the rivers. There's Himalyan rhodendrons, Japanese (Sika) deer and many, many, others. It is a question as to how much longer Scotland is going to look like Scotland. As said before, Biosecurity hasn't been a big issue in this country, but if we are not going to end up like New Zealand, then it has to become a central fact of life. The meeting was, I thought, hopeful in general, but there is still a long way to go. In particular, attitudes of anglers need to change. There are too many still who think that if the fish species they happen to like to catch are not in their local loch or river then they are doing something good if they introduce them. It's actually a very selfish and arrogant attitude - no individual has the right to make such fundamental and irreversible changes to the natural environment and, of course, what one generation thinks is a good idea, later generations might well not. In New Zealand, they now value their native plants and animals and very much regret the introductions of their 19th century forbearers.
1sr November : All sorts of small things in the office
2nd November : Up to Elgin to give a talk to the Spey Anglers Association AGM on "What is Fisheries Management ?". All the questions however, were about stocking, which seems to be a very live issue up there. I told the meeting what my view was - that I have never actually understood what the point of hatchery stocking was supposed to be ! If there are not enough fish spawning, then the logical thing to do is to stop killing them - and if there are enough fish spawning, then by definition the nursery habitat is full to capacity and there is no more room for any more. Unless therefore there are insupperable problems suchs as impassable dams, lice infestations from fish farms or acidification that destroys fish eggs but not older life stages, what is the point of hatchery stocking supposed to be ? You cannot get a quart out of a pint pot, as the old saying goes, so if nursery areas are full to capacity, putting in more fry or parr cannot make any difference. Simple experiments have shown this a good many times - a stretch of stream with no natural fish population (above a waterfall or an artificial channel) is stocked at normal rates one season, double and treble in other seasons and the result is always the same - the number of fish that survives is the same, regardless of the initial stocking density. Any hill farmer knows just how many sheep can be supported on a particular bit of hill and that to over-stock would require extra feeding - which is just another version of carrying capacity. Why fish should be thought to be exempt from such basic points of ecology as needing enough food and space to survive, I have never been able to work out. The best explanation I have come up with is historical. Hatcheries were developed in the 1840's and were regarded as one of the scientific miracles of their times. However, at that time, there was no method of finding out what was actually in rivers and burns and since large numbers of juvenile trout and salmon could not be seen from the bank, it was assumed that they were empty and needed stocking. In fact, juvenile trout and salmon are difficult to see from the bank - a seen Parr is a dead Parr in nature - so visual observation is no guide. There was one method that could have been used in the 19th century to find out what was in nursery areas - poison, but I have never come across of a case of this being used. Anyway, streams and burns were stocked without any knowledge of what was in there already and this became a traditional practice. However, when electric-fishing came along in the 1960's it quickly became apparent that nursery areas where usually stuffed with juveniles and that stocking was pointless. This "new" knowledge however, seems to have had great difficulty in penetrating the consciousness of the angling public.
The concept of Smolt rearing was also raised. Obviously, by keeping the smolts in hatcheries till they are ready to go to sea competition with natural stocks is avoided. There is a basic, logical, problem though with this. If animals are being raised to be released into the wild, then they should be raised in conditions as near as possible to the wild, so they are "fit for purpose". This is not done with smolts though, they are raised in safe, comfortable, totally artificial conditions - and then one fine day in Spring they are tipped out of their luxury hatcheries and expected to swim to Greenland -without ever even having had to look for their own food before. There is also the question of what sort of fish survive in hatcheries. In the wild, about 1% survive from egg to smolt so clearly those that survive are the cream of the crop, the very best - and those that died were not. In a hatchery, about 60% survive - but which ones ? The ones that would have survived best in the wild or the ones that do survive best in hatcheries ? Obviously the latter - but are they also good for life in the wild ? Given the very different conditions of a natural burn and a hatchery tank, the assumption must be that those that survive best in hatcheries are not likely to be those that would have survived best in the wild. Hatchery rearing is not a neutral process as seems to be assumed. Natural selection weeds out all but the very best in the wild. Hatchery rearing imposes "artifical selection", selecting those best suited for hatchery life - fine if the fish are to live in hatcheries or fish farms all their life but not if they are to be released into the wild. Once out of the hatchery, natural selection will come back with a vengence - and the fish do not even have the right behaviour for the wild. A recent study from Edinburgh University found hatchery smolts were particularly vulnerable to predation not having had any experience of danger and came to the conclusion that they needed "training" in predator recognition and avoidance in order to survive - though how you would do this, I do not know. Clearly hatchery rearing of smolts simply postpones natural selection and mortality it does not defeat them - and there is also the added problem that these domesticated animals have not developed the right behaviours for survival in the wild. It is really not surprising therefore that the typical return rate of hatchery smolts in Britain is less than 1%, compared to 10% or so for wild smolts.
Friday 3rd November : On Leave