Monday 22nd January : Most of the morning taken up with meeting the Health & Safety consultant. Will have to come up with Standard Operating procedures for all parts of our work into which our present risk assessments and safety procedures can be combined. The afternoon taken up with the consultation on the Wildlife and Countryside Act amendment proposals & discussing the results coming out of the Trout Catch Logbook Scheme with Kenny - he's deep in data analysis at the moment.
Tuesday 23rd January : To Hopetoun House in the morning to hear the Minister, Sarah Boyack, launch the new SNH Species Action framework document. The whole issue of Alien Species & biodiversity has been rapidly moving up the political agenda and it is good to hear the commitments she makes. Biosecurity - stopping alien species from getting in to the country in the first place - hasn't moved up at the same rate, but it's the logical foundation to any policy on alien species. Get a tooth out at the dentist in the afternoon.
Wednesday 24th January : Finished off the Wildlife and Countryside Act consultation. Most of the day writing an article on scale reading for the RAFTS programme of increasing the contribution to angling magazines made by fisheries biologists. The first time I've actually used the new database of scale-readings organised by James - a huge improvement on the ages it took to get data sorted the old way.
Thursday 25th January : The weekly visit to clean the Peebles trap. More article writing in the pm, along with revisions to an application for funding for crayfish control being made through RAFTS & revisions to the policy document on stocking consents
Friday 26th January : The weekly co-ordination meeting in the morning, the main topic being the new year meeting with the boatmen next Tuesday. This is when we update them on things we are doing and find out what is concerning them and issues they think need to be dealt with. Most of the afternoon preparing material for this meeting - a short presentation on the sizes of fish caught last season and printing out the Damage Recording sheets. These are record sheets on which damage found on fish can be recorded in a standard form for analysis, the main aim being to assess the proportion of fish caught that have been damaged by seals. A phone call from a journalist on Scotland on Sunday about the small fish caught last year and supply him with some of the information from our catch record series. The numbers of small fish (6lbs & under) caught in Autumn have been gradually increasing over the last 30 years, so last season's catches were part of a long-term trend, not a one off. Conversely, the number of larger fish (13lbs & over) has been decreasing over the same period, so the average weight is falling. If this present period of Autumn run dominance (post 1965) is compared with the last (pre 1915) it can be seen that while the former is dominated by Grilse, the latter was dominated by Salmon. Indeed, larger Salmon dominated Autumn catches right up to the late 1940's when the 7 to 12lb size category overtook them in numbers. With the long-term catch data series we have computerised here, it is easy to see that there has been a massive change in the size of fish coming in in Autumn over the last 50 years. By contrast, two sea-winter Spring Salmon have averaged 8lbs over the last 150 years, with no change (though three sea-winter Spring Salmon fade out in the 1920's)