Monday 20th November : As there had been a lot of rain overnight, off to the trap at Peebles with Kenny who is on duty today. A big water, but nothing excessive. Two mature females and a male Brown-trout. In the office the rest of the day, an "Admin" day. Did a report on the scales of a 9lb Brown-trout - definitely a Brown-trout but what looks like a Summer of extra-good growth quite late on in its life that could indicate a spell in the estuary (or a change onto feeding on Baggies (Minnows)). More paperwork on WFD and SAC regulations. Kenny & Fiona do the evening trap visit - another female Sea-trout

Tuesday 21st November : Another day in the office. More SAC & WFD paperwork, also going through the articles Fiona has found in her trawl of "The Scotsman" digital archives for Tweed items. Newspaper reporting was really thorough in the past, even the Black Market price of poached Salmon in Selkirk ( 3d / lb in 1920) can be found. How Salmon survived the terrible pollution of the Tweed is a miracle - in 1935 there is an article headlined "River Tweed - National Asset and Public Sewer" and reports  elsewhere of anglers being driven off the water by the stench - and of excrement floating in famous fishing pools at times. Another session going through scale readings with Barry after lunch - there is a report in the "Scotsman" archive of the scale reading of a 55lb fish caught at The Lees in November 1913 - it had been a two year old smolt but had then spent four years at sea. A three sea-winter fish is a very great rarity nowadays for the Tweed. Why fish spending long periods at sea should now be so rare is not known - one idea is that mortality at sea is now so great that only fish making a shorter stay at sea have any chance of survival. Finish the day working on the talk for the wildlife vets meeting tomorrow.

Wednesday 22nd November : Last minute work on my talk for the vets meeting and with Fiona on the catch records analyses for small fish for a presentation to the Tweed Council next week. Afternoon spent travelling down to London.

Thursday 23rd November : To the Wildlife Vets meeting, in the East India and Sports Club in St. James' Square. A most impressive meeting room- the International Rugby Hall of Fame, so surrounded by rugby memorabilia and photos of the players inducted into the hall. The chairman of the meeting tells us that this room is where the England selectors meet, and have met for years. Wonder briefly if it would be possible to put some sort of curse on meetings held in this room, then realise that someone already has, judging by recent England results. A very interesting meeting, talks on all aspects of management of wild animal species that cause problems or impact on other wild species of value - my talk is on Seals, Goosanders and Cormorants and their impact on the Tweed fisheries, and it seems to be well received. Several talks on Badgers as reservoirs of TB (Tuberculosis) and sources of infection of cattle. While this appears as a controversial issue in the press, these vets have no doubts whatsoever of the link and the evidence presented is persuasive. Where there is no TB in Badgers, there is no TB in cattle and when Badgers were fully controlled, TB was almost completely eliminated from cattle in Britain. More evidence too, of how ground-nesting birds are much more succesful where there is gamekeeper control of foxes etc. - I've come across similar evidence before, but some new examples. A talk too, from the Anglers' Conservation Association on the effects of sheep dips on aquatic invertebrates. Even drips from newly dipped sheep dropping onto a bridge and then dropping into the water can wipe out invertebrates for kms downstream. At very low concentrations, can also affect fertility of male salmon and result in deformed fry hatching out from eggs. Eventually back to Edinburgh via a much delayed flight from London City airport.

Friday 24th November : Off to a "stakeholders" meeting on controls for fish movements in Scotland. The new Tweed Act has, for the first time, given real control over fish stocking in the Tweed & Eye catchments to the RTC and a policy and administrative structure have to be set up for this. Similar powers will be provided to cover the rest of Scotland in the forthcoming Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill and this meeting has been organised by SEERAD to discuss what form these controls should take and my role is to see what is being proposed and how the Tweed version could reflect this. The framework tabled looks quite good, but I take some issue with the emphasis on "risk" and "damage" as the basic criteria (as I did at the meeting with the Non-native Species Secretariat in London a fortnight ago) as this gives the clear implication that if no significant "damage" is caused by an alien species, then there is no problem. This is just not the case, the simple presence of an alien species, "damaging" or not means the end to the local, native, community of plants or animals, a change to the local ecology (obvious or not) and a loss of biodiversity. What was so interesting about the native community of animals in Scotland was that while the land animals were the same as the European continent, there having been a land bridge for them to cross over into Britain, the freshwater fish were an "island" community, there never having been a freshwater connection between Scotland and the Continent for them to swim across. All fish species native to Scotland are therefore those that in one form or another can cross salt water. This made Scotland's Salmonid-dominated freshwater fish community very different from that of the rest of Europe, which is dominated by Carp species. Every time another continental species is introduced to Scottish waters therefore, the less different Scottish waters become from the rest of Europe and so European biodiversity is lost. Scotland had no crayfish either, unlike the rest of Europe, so the spread of Signal Crayfish is ending another difference. This process by which the differences in plant and animal communities between different regions and between islands and mainlands are being destroyed by introductions has been called "Ecological MacDonaldisation", making a comparison between this process and the ironing-out of differences in foods and eating habits between different parts of the world through the spread of "fast-food" chains. Severe and urgent as this problem is in Scotland, the proposed regulation mechanism, given its  emphasis on "risk" and "damage" as the criteria for control (and which could be debated endlessly in many cases, often being  subjective) does not actually rule out the spread of alien fish species. Yet, on basic biodiversity grounds (which is supposed now to be an issue of concern for the Exectutive, judging by Rhona Brankin's recent statement) such further spread of alien species needs to be halted altogether. The sad fact is, however, that the spread of Baggies (Minnows), a non-native Carp species, through the Highlands over the last twenty years has been such that the native Scottish fish community may very soon become extinct on the mainland altogether.