The Tweed Foundation has just sent the first samples from the Tweed to the Technical University of Denmark, the partner organisation in the "Living North Sea" programme responsible for Sea-trout genetics analysis. These samples will be pooled with others sent in by the other partners from all around the North Sea and there will also be contributions from nearby organisations such as the Moray Firth Sea-trout Project and the AARC Programme which is looking at the trout of both sides of the English Channel.
The end result of this work should be that any Sea-trout caught anywhere
in the North Sea can be genetically identified, to home region at least and
probably, to home river. This will allow movements around the North Sea to be
worked out and also give information on the sources of the Sea-trout caught in
the different coastal and
estuarine fisheries of the North Sea.
In
the middle of 2009, The Tweed Foundation began a major new study on
Tweed's Sea-trout stocks, under the title "Living North Sea". This is a
pan-northern European project comprising 11 other scientific research
partners from Scotland, England, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany,
Norway, Sweden and Denmark. With these partners in the programme, it is
hoped to identify the mixed-stock fisheries
around the southern North Sea that exploit Tweed Sea-trout as well as
confirm
and extend knowledge of the marine feeding grounds that they utilise.
The
long-term aim of the Living North Seas work is to set up a North Sea
Sea-trout
group that can oversee the management of the species in the North Sea.