WHO IS ANGLING’S PUBLIC ENEMY No1?
“Clearly it has little regard for fish welfare”
I’M GRUMPY today as I’ve just read some news that stopped me in my tracks. Sometimes the mind boggles, it really does.
Those bright sparks at Natural England have popped up on the radar for the wrong reasons again, and I wonder about its decision-making process.
It’s supposed to be the national wildlife regulator but clearly has little regard for fish welfare... and that’s not good enough.
A while ago there was a massive court case as NE wanted to prevent bream moving to their spawning grounds in the Broads. The NE ‘experts’ decided that bream were colouring the water and needed to be excluded, so that a certain type of weed could survive instead. Expert evidence stated that it was sewage and agricultural discharges into the rivers that were really causing the problem and not the fish.
Following the findings of a judicial review court case, expert advice all saying that it was a bad idea, and it being told be the EA that it couldn’t have a permit, NE was told it couldn’t stop the fish movement.
But here’s the rub. It’s only gone and done it again. This time it’s erected fish barriers without licence at Hudsons Marsh and Gravel Dyke. If a private individual did that they could be prosecuted. The EA should apply that rule to Natural England’s actions.
In a time when angling is so important to people’s wellbeing you might well think it would be supported by those who have a stake in its management, but no!
Natural England just rumbles on regardless and that, once again, puts it at the top of the list of angling’s public enemies.