Fishy Stuff – Two articles:

1.  The Angling Trust has successfully applied for £131,000 funding from charitable trust the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to spend on increased campaigning to protect dwindling marine and freshwater fish stocks over the next two years.

The funds will be matched with membership subscription income and fundraising from other sources to pay for political advocacy, campaign materials and staff time, including for a new Campaigns Officer who will support the work of our National Campaigns Coordinator Martin Salter and existing staff in the Angling Trust and Fish Legal.

The focus of the campaigns funded by the charitable trust will be in three key areas:

  • Protection of marine fisheries – reform of legislation on inshore netting, new conservation measures for sea bass and to protect sensitive estuarine environments
  • Reversal of decline in salmon stocks – regulatory measures to tackle agricultural pollution, removal of fish barriers (e.g. weirs and dams), restrictions on commercial netting for Atlantic salmon as part of the Save Our Salmon campaign
  • Restoring natural flows of rivers – reform on water abstraction to lead to the restoration of natural flow regimes on more rivers

This new post is being advertised this week at a salary of up to £25,000 and the closing date for applications is Tuesday, 23rd February – see CMS Jobs.

2.  Last year was the best year ever for the Environment Agency’s specialist fish breeding farm

Experts stocked more than 452,220 fish and 1.3 million larvae into rivers all over the country. They were all bred at the Environment Agency’s Calverton fish farm. Calverton is the Environment Agency’s principal supply of coarse fish for restocking. Every year for the last 31 years the farm has produced up to 450,000 fish of nine species for restocking into rivers following pollution incidents or to help restore fish stocks in rivers where numbers are low. All of its work is funded by rod licence income.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/almost-2-million-fish-released-into-englands-rivers

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