Ace stuff achieved by the superstars at the Wandle Trust that I have been lucky enough to work with on their habitat restoration this year. Hats off to Tim Longstaff for driving a punishing programme of working parties following the techniques and designs that we came up with. Hats off too to the volunteers and also to Bella and Theo for continuing to steer the Wandle Trust to ever-greater achievements.
Spawning trout! — The Wandle Trust
The spawning trout are using the introduced gravels that have been invigorated by a combination of channel narrowing, weir notching and Large Woody Debris installations that are designed to focus scouring flows on specific areas of the stream bed.
At the moment these fish have their origins as "Trout in the Classroom" fish and the fact that they are finding the habitat improvements and making breeding attempts is a very encouraging "proof of concept" that the habitat modifications are worthwhile.
In future though, I very much hope to battle successfully for the permission to source and use wild parr from several suitable donor populations to see what they make of the improved habitat. The expectation is that wild fish ought to enjoy greater survival and reproduction success in the wild compared to more domesticated strains.
Importantly, the use of parr (rather than adult wild brood stock) from systems that produce sufficient densities of juveniles that naturally undergo "density dependent mortality" will ensure that we don't damage the donor river populations.
Happy New Year indeed.
Happy Wandle Xmas spawning trout
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