Environmental Managers Quarterly Report October 2002Fencing All of the fencing for this year is now completed.
Fencing has been carried out on the bottom of the Mien, the top of the
Kinnel, the Annan water and the Annan at March bank and Milton. Bankside revetments and instream works
This years instream
works programme was severely affected by the very wet summer, however a
large body of work was finally completed on the Annan water at Meikle
Holm and the Ae at the Barony College. In addition the opportunity has
been taken to influence the types of revetment works carried out
elsewhere in the river on the main stem at Loch brow (commissioned and
paid for by the Crown Estate) and on the Ae near the village of Ae
(commissioned by Roads Department). In addition a road bridge, which is
to be repaired on the Lochan Burn near Newton farm, will have improved
fish passage due to the removal of a gravel cone that is building up
near the confluence with the Annan Water. The pictures below
show some of the work that was carried out on the Annan Water at Meikle
Holm, in all around 300m of fast eroding banking was stabilised using
timbers with willow branches secured in between them. The willow will
root over the next few years and hide the works whilst creating
excellent habitat for young fish. Prior to the work being carried out
the banks instability had lead to massive gravel movements through the
system and a loss of what was very good habitat for both young salmon
and trout.
The willow braches have been sandwiched between the two rows of timbers to ensure that they do not wash out before they have a chance to root. This work was carried out during late summer, not an ideal time to get willow to root, but as the base of each branch is always submerged in the river there should not be a problem.
In the picture above the timbers have been installed and the willow braches trapped between the logs. The channel on the right of the picture is created so that whilst working in the river we do not create silt plumes, which can travel down the river causing damage to fish stocks and discolouring the water for anglers. After
the work was completed it was backfilled with soils and gravel. The
angle between the top of the bank and the top of the timbers is kept as
shallow as possible to avoid wash out. Because of the high amount of
soil and silt that is mixed in with the gravel it is expected that
vegetation will quickly establish its self on the bank. Survey work The Water of Milk
habitat survey is now almost completed with about three more weeks work
needed. The survey has taken longer than first expected due to the high
water we experienced through much of the summer which made the
collection of data impossible, this high water has meant however that
substantial numbers of adult sea trout and salmon fish have been seen in
this catchment which bodes well for this years spawning. The electrofishing surveys have almost been completed now, again a victim of the wet weather, which has meant that it has not been possible to obtain valid data until the rivers, dropped to a low level. As the fishing has been in general a lot later than in previous years the data will not be easily comparable with our other data sets but it does still provide useful information. What has been noticeable was the abundance of precocious male parr on many of the sites (sometimes as high as 25% of all the parr found). These fish may contribute significantly to the spawning population of fish with some authorities claiming that as much as 10% of all the eggs are fertilised by parr. It is not known what the survival of these fish is through to smolt but many people suspect that it is low so it is possible that in some areas of the river the high parr counts that we have found may be made up of a significant number of fish that never smolt and go to sea to return as adult fish. The general picture appears to be unchanged with fish being found in reasonable number everywhere that they have good conditions. Another factor that has to be taken into consideration when electrofishing at this time of year is the inwards migration of mature fish (particularly trout) to spawn in some of the sites. On one site on the Evan Water we caught a brown trout of over 600mm, this fish has almost certainly not lived there for all its life but will have grown in the main river somewhere and migrated into the Evan to spawn.
The electrofishing
this year included three sites on the Lochar water. This is the only
river under SEPA’s pollution classification is recorded as a ‘C’.
As such it was comforting to find significant numbers of trout and
salmon in the lower and middle reaches of this river. Although the size
of this river precludes it ever being a salmon fishery in its own right
it probably contributes salmon to the inner Solway net fishery and to
the lower reaches of the rod fishery in the inner Solway rivers. The fishing’s on the
Kirtle have been mixed this year with large numbers of trout being found
in the middle and upper reaches but only a few salmon being present in
the lower parts of the river. The large number of trout that were found
would however indicate that a significant rod fishery could be developed
on this river in the future. On another bright note
we have found more trout in the Mein this year than in previous years so
indications are that pollution events have not been as severe in the
very near past as they were several years ago. We have not found
significant numbers of salmon upstream of Ecclefechan but we have found
a few, salmon were almost entirely absent in the surveys carried out 4
years ago. This back end we
intend repeat the spawning surveys that were carried out in the 1997-8
and 1998-9 seasons. This will hopefully confirm the early spawning areas
of the river and give us an indication of the numbers of fish spawning
in various parts of the river. At long last we have
received the habitat database from the SFCC, which is now installed onto
the boards PC. Over the next few months all of the habitat surveys that
have been carried out will be installed onto this database, which will
enable easier interpretation of the information. It will also make the
data revue, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year
more feasible. Over the last few years this fisheries board has collected a huge amount of data that is leading to a better understanding of how the river works, throughout Scotland areas that have established biologists and managers are acting broadly in the same way. As a result of this SEPA has asked the SFCC and all its members to provide data, and expert opinion on the condition of all the watercourse that they have information on within there areas. This contract will be worth £40,000 to the SFCC and will be a major test for the organisation and the work will enable SEPA to more clearly define which watercourses are impacted, and by what, for the water frameworks directive. In the future there is an opportunity for boards and trusts to earn money by providing this data to SEPA for future monitoring programmes. BGE Gas Pipeline The re-instatement
work is virtually completed on the pipeline. There is still a
significant body of work to complete but is unlikely that there will be
any further water quality problems emanating from this project. In addition to the £5,000 that has been offered to the board for compensation to owners from the silt plumes during the summer we have also secured an additional £25,000, which can be used for project work by the board. Pollution As usual a list of the recorded incidents has been supplied by SEPA and attached to the back of this report. The pollution incidents that were created on the BGE site during the summer have now been reported to the Fiscal complete with reports from the Annan DSFB. Changes to fisheries regulations on the Annan All
board members were asked to report back to the environmental manager.
Not all of the board members reported back but of the responses received
most were fairly supportive of the generalities but some had concerns
about the fine detail. There have also been a couple of meetings one
with the Upper Annan Dale Angling Association and one with RAFIA to
discuss the proposals. Earl
of Annandale: Upper
Annandale Angling Association: RAFIA: Anthony
Steel: David
Shankland: Kevin
Yates: Tony
Turner: Many
of the response were verbal but the written responses have been attached
in the appendix at the back of this report. General
state of the fishery so far this year. 2002
has so far been very wet; as a result we have had more salmon being
caught in August and September by the rod fishery than for many years.
The actual number of people fishing for them has been very low with
local rods enjoying most of the sport. We now need water to
re-invigorate the fishery as there are a lot of salmon now in the
estuary which are waiting to run the river but will not do so whilst the
levels are so low. Of
biggest concern this year is the lack of people visiting the area for
fishing, these people ar4e the lifeblood of the fisheries boards
finances as without the revenue from tourism it would be difficult to
justify large increases in the assessment. Finances The
HLF program is continuing but it is likely to take some time yet before
we receive a definite answer, we do know that the scheme put forward by
the Annan DSFB has been received warmly sp providing we can obtain the
match funding from SNH and other partners it would appear likely that
our bid will succeed eventually. Scottish Environment Protection Agency Report for RADSFB Meeting on 11 October 2002 Water Pollution Incidents/Reports in River
Annan/Kirtle Water Catchment 18 August 2002 - 2 October 2002
Galloway’s Fisheries Development Officer Report for the Annan DSFB Meeting In May
2002, Catriona Stevenson was employed by the Galloway Fisheries Trust (GFT)
to work across the region as Fisheries Development Officer (FDO). This
position is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund. The
position was created to encourage the sustainable development and
expansion of fisheries and fishery related businesses across Dumfries
and Galloway. Both still waters and running waters are included within
the remit of the post. To date, there has been considerable interest in
the advice service offered by the FDO. Owners of established fisheries
and individuals interested in developing new fisheries have contacted
the Trust to request information and advice. Site visits have been
carried out across the region to give advice on the siting of new
fisheries, the management of aquatic weeds and the stocking of waters.
The advisory service has also been used by various groups who are
interested in purchasing waters for the use of the local community. In order to encourage the development of fishery related businesses, such as accommodation providers; the FDO has become involved with projects that aim to promote fishing within the region. The newly formed ‘floatingline’ website is one such initiative that provides an integrated resource for those interested in fishing in Dumfries and Galloway. Furthermore, the FDO has attended meetings where fishery interests have expressed their views on the promotion of the region’s fisheries and these suggestions will form the basis of promotional initiatives in the future. For the future, it is anticipated that the advisory service will continue to bring the GFT into closer contact with fishery projects across the region. The FDO will create a database of all fisheries across the region, which will be used in promoting these fisheries. The promotion of fishery resources within individual catchments will be carried out by creating catchment based promotional literature, which will be made as widely available as possible. The opportunities for fisheries ecotourism within the region will also be investigated. For further information on the work of the Fisheries Development Officer, please visit the GFT website at www.gallowayfisheriestrust.org or telephone 01671 403011.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
