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Bit of night time reading.

Andrew Richardson said:
thats hurt my head, can somebody just tell me what it means.
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They've weighed, measured and aged barbel from various set locations, made lots of graphs and tried to build a picture of the population....sounds good but rarely is there any continuation or follow up on these things. They tend to become a reference for the next person that does the same.
 
Fair comment Jason.

I did think the outcomes noted that when bankside cover was reduced it seemed to indicate the larger fish relocated and also the opinion that improvement in spawning sites led to no increased population suprising.
 
The key sentence seems to be:

the causal factors in the decline of this
B. barbus population appear to have been in the adult life-stage habitat
and were likely related to the loss of longitudinal connectivity, mainly due
to the presence of water retention structures.
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Am I right in thinking that the restriction on movement caused by weirs etc. has led to the declining population?
 
Anthony Pearson said:
The key sentence seems to be:




Am I right in thinking that the restriction on movement caused by weirs etc. has led to the declining population?
Click to expand...

That is certainly the way I interpret it Anthony. 'Lack of longtitudinal connectivity' obviously means that there are no long, uninterupted stretches to allow the fish to roam many miles, which is their natural life style.

They seem to be saying that a second downside of the river being broken up into shortish sections by weirs is that it doesn't allow juvenile fish the freedom to migrate to find their own territories. Perhaps in those circumstances, they then have to endure constant batterings from the dominant adults who see that section as 'theirs'...much in the way otters, swans etc. would do? That would explain the apparent lack of growth at a certain age I guess, though I am not sure how well that fits in with barbel being shoaling fish.

More conjecture on my part, but perhaps the shoaling tendencies are reduced in small rivers such as this, the lack of space making them more territorial, more protective of what comparatively little space they have? Interesting, love to see more research follow ups.

Cheers, Dave.
 
Does this in any way account for the decline at Adams Mill on the Great Ouse I wonder? Am I correct in thinking that the fabled stretch restricted fish movements between two weirs, a couple of miles apart?
 
The upper lea probably has the highest population of barbel to water mass of any river in the country,on the private sections.Its all well and good doing these surveys but like most things they can be interpreted in many ways.The river is tiny but unlike most southern rivers its very much alive,the barbel are a lot smaller than on other rivers but what they lack in size they more than make up for in numbers.As the survey shows the biggest fish they caught was around 4lb,maybe their numbers declined but how many of us would like our local river to have the amount of barbel the survey shows on such small stretches.It is suffering badly from poaching and fish being removed for the pot on free stretches.
 
Mark. I believe I read on the BS site (can't look any more)that quite a large number of barbel were stocked in the Lea?

Graham
 
They were stocked around kings weir a long way downstream.On the upper you can catch gudgeon sized barbel and all year classes seem to be there.Every species seems to be doing well.
 
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