Small fry swap classroom for wild waters
Sarah O’Sullivan, from the Clyde and Avon Valley Landscape Partnership, on the latest event at Avon Water.
Thousands of brown trout fry have been released into the Avon Water and its tributaries as part of the Salmon Homecoming multi-phase education project.
Almost 500 primary school children from 21 schools have reared brown trout from eggs to fry in special classroom hatcheries.
Working closely with Clyde River Foundation scientists, the children were responsible for ensuring that hatchery conditions mimicked those of the Avon Water to prepare their fish for the wild.
Salmon Homecoming follows the recent completion of the Avon Barriers project which created two fish passes on the sites of Millheugh and Ferniegair Weirs near Larkhall and Hamilton. These two large weirs were preventing free movement of migratory fish and the alterations will open up significant watercourses upstream, including spawning habitat for Atlantic salmon.
Brown trout, which are close relatives of the salmon, have been reared because they are already present throughout the Avon catchment.
This allows monitoring of the salmon’s natural recolonisation of their former spawning grounds when they return.
Atlantic salmon start life in rivers and migrate downstream as smolts to mature at sea, where they travel as far as the Faroe Islands and Greenland. After one to four years they make the return journey to the river of their birth to spawn.
Improved fish passage has great conservation benefits as it enables species such as the Atlantic salmon to access the upper reaches of the river system, where prime spawning habitat is situated.
Salmon Homecoming is supported by Heritage Lottery Fund-supported Clyde and Avon Valley Landscape Partnership (CAVLP) and Greggs Foundation and is delivered by the Clyde River Foundation.
The schoolchildren will also be involved the second phase of the project, which involves a detailed assessment of the river.
For more details visit www. clyderiverfoundation.org and www.clydeandavonvalley.org