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Dead trout found in dried-up spawning stream

Posted: Monday 30 July, 2012 @ 14:02:41

Dead trout fry in the dried up stream below Loch Clair (Badachro system).

After heavy showers of rain over the past weekend (28th -29th July 2012), water levels in the rivers of Wester Ross are much higher today than they have been for the past few months. However, the rains were not in time to save juvenile fish in one small stream. On 27th July a WRFT electro-fishing team surveyed sites within the Badachro River catchment. The outflow stream from Loch Clair had stopped flowing and dead trout were observed stranded in stagnant pools. When last surveyed in 2010, we recorded one of the highest densities of trout fry within the WRFT area at this site.

 

At main river sites surveyed so far this year (Kinlochewe, Dundonnell & Badachro rivers), results have been much better with generally high densities of salmon fry demonstrating successful spawning of salmon in Autumn 2011 and good survival of eggs and alevin in river gravels during subsequent months. As they grow, some juvenile salmon are able to move upstream to colonise areas of suitable habitat where fish populations are depleted. So long as higher water levels are sustained, fish populations in some of the smaller tributaries may recover within a year.

 

Please contact Peter Cunningham at info@wrft.org.uk if you would like to join a WRFT electro-fishing team for a day during the latter part of the summer and early autumn.