Don ready for the return of salmon
ONLY THE most optimistic among modern-day anglers would perch up on the banks of the Don in industrial South Yorkshire in search of a salmon supper.
Yet until a few centuries ago stocks were so plentiful the fish could be sold at Doncaster market for less than tuppence a pound. The many river poachers whose activities the law still permitted didn’t pay at all.
The spread of heavy industry throughout the area rendered the River Don almost barren in the Victorian era but recent sightings have raised the possibility that nature may finally be claiming it back – albeit with a little human intervention.
Yesterday, the helpers concerned marked the completion of a 20-year project to give the fish uninhibited passage through the Don from the North Sea to their spawning
Rachel Walker, project manager of Don Catchment Rivers Trust. grounds in the centre of Sheffield and upstream in the Pennines.
With the installation of a “fish pass” on Masbrough Weir at Forge Island in Rotherham, the last of 18 obstructions along the river had been removed, allowing salmon to move freely up and downstream.
Dr Ben Gillespie, a technical specialist at Yorkshire Water, one of the public and private organisations who collaborated on the project, said: “Returning migrating fish back to their spawning grounds for the first time in 200 years is an incredible achievement.”
The project was created after reports in the 1990s of salmon being caught in the lower Don around Doncaster. Early last year the discovery of an adult salmon close to the centre of Sheffield confirmed the species’ return to the city after an absence of 150 years.
Anthony Downing, the Environment
Agency’s catchment coordinator for the
Don and Rother, said the installation at Forge Island and another by Sheffield Council at Sanderson’s Weir was a very exciting moment.
“Hopefully we will now see a sustainable salmon population in the River Don after an absence of around 200 years,” he said. “Not only will salmon benefit from the fish passes but many can be used by other species, benefiting other wildlife in the river corridor.” Among the biggest of the impediments to salmon had been the 1950s flood-defence structure near Doncaster Prison known as Crimpsall Sluice, which in the late 1990s was replaced with a fixed weir with a rock ramp built into the old course of the river.
Rachel Walker, project manager at Don Catchment Rivers Trust, said the latest fish passes had been completed on schedule, despite complications created by the quarantine.
She said: “I can’t imagine a tougher set of circumstances for building a fish pass but we’re there now and we are very proud the River Don is coming back to life.
“If there is one thing we have learnt during the lockdown, it’s that people need access to the natural environment for their well-being.”
We are very proud the River Don is coming back to life.