For many fish, moving within rivers or migrating between rivers and the sea is an integral part of their lifecycle, but rivers in England and Wales contain some of the largest numbers of obstructions to this natural ‘fish passage’ of any rivers in the world.
Defra’s new study Passage of Fish Benefits Study Final Report helps us improve our understanding of the benefits of removing or overcoming obstructions in waterways both to the thousands of people that enjoy our canals and rivers every year and to the UK economy.
The Environment Agency in England and Natural Resources Wales are already working to remove obstructions to fish or install fish passes that help them get past these obstructions – and are also working to ensure that water intakes have screens installed to stop fish being trapped and injured by them.
In the picture above, an eel pass has been fitted to help eels move past the obstruction, and below a large weir has been replaced with several smaller waterfalls, which are easier for fish to get up or down.
We hope that by understanding the costs and benefits of addressing these obstructions we can improve the good ecological status of our rivers and bring economic benefits to local communities.
1 comment
Comment by George Heywood posted on
Protecting the ecosystem is so important. Allowing fish to get up and down the river seems like such an obvious thing.