Saturday, July 6, 2024

"River restoration is encouraging Atlantic salmon to return to heart of the UK"

Our finny friends are surely in search of butter, lemon and dill.

From PhysOrg, April 10:

For the first time in 100 years, Atlantic salmon are once again spawning in the upper waters of the River Derwent.

The return of spawning salmon to the rivers of Derbyshire is a real conservation success story. After centuries of intensive river management by the county's burgeoning factories, the fish were driven extinct in many of its waterways.

Since then, the health of some of the rivers have improved to an extent that salmon can once again spawn. But the routes for the fish to return are still blocked by the remnants of the industrial boom, with numerous dams and weirs still blocking the migratory route of salmon attempting to swim upstream.

Dr. Tim Jacklin is a Conservation Officer for the Wild Trout Trust who has worked on river restoration projects that encourage and helps the migration of fish such as the Atlantic salmon. He was involved with the removal of a weir at Snake Lane, Derbyshire, which allowed the salmon to recolonize the headwaters of the River Derwent.

The catalyst for this work was seeing salmon making it all the way up the River Derwent, but then being stopped from exploring the upper reaches where the river becomes the Ecclesbourne.

"We'd started to see large salmon turning up in the Derwent in winter," explains Tim. "They became sort of local celebrities really. People were going out with their head torches at night and looking into the river, because it's not a particularly large watercourse and these fish were quite literally as long as your arm, without it being an angler's tale."....

....MUCH MORE

 Here's the article I was going for when distracted by the fishies. July 6:

High-selectivity graphene membranes enhance CO₂ capture efficiency