A three year funding package has been secured by Inverness College, University of the Highlands and Islands to support the development and research of the West Coast River Carron salmon and sea-trout restoration project. A combined package of £300k over three years is coming from Scottish Sea Farms (through the Heart of the Community Trust), Scottish Salmon Company, three aquaculture feed companies (EWOS, Skretting and BIOMAR), the River Carron Improvement Association (“RCIA”) and Inverness College UHI.
Shaun Macdonald, Convenor of the RCIA said: "The regeneration of the River Carron has exceeded all our expectations for which we are grateful to Inverness College and Bob Kindness. We welcome the co-operation and support of the fish farming industry for continued research into solutions that we all seek: the development of remedial measures to offset the uncertainties of salmonid marine survival and the preservation of biodiversity in the River Carron."
John Rea, Production Manager for SSF's Scotland region commented: “The determination of Inverness College and the RCIA in refusing to let this west coast river die is exemplary. The expertise of Bob Kindness, supported by a collective willingness to "do what is possible", has shown you can make choices which deliver healthy fish returns despite unknowable marine risks to wild salmon. Much has still to be scientifically revealed - I hope SSF's funding for the College and UHI can help break the barriers to making use of this pioneering approach."
Henry Dalgety, Freshwater Manager at The Scottish Salmon Company, said: “We are delighted to collaborate on and support this very important project. We have been involved with the project for a number of years and operate in the area. It’s encouraging to see a significant increase in the river’s stocks and we understand important lessons can be learned from The River Carron Project which can be taken elsewhere.”
A statement from EWOS, BIOMAR and Skretting said ‘The feed companies are pleased to support this project and believe it will demonstrate the potential of stock enhancement as a way of improving wild salmonid populations.’
Salmon represent an important economic resource for the area, both through the attraction of tourists to improved angling opportunities and the generation of local employment by the fish farming industry.
In the past the River Carron supported significant salmon and sea trout populations, but during the 1990s the declared rod catch collapsed, falling to a five year average in 2001 of only 6 salmon and 12 sea trout. Working with the RCIA, Inverness College began a restocking programme with the aim of restoring the salmon and sea trout populations of the river.
Under the management of Bob Kindness, brood stock, produced from eggs stripped from wild fish caught in the river, were the basis for restoring fish populations. By 2004, the declared annual salmon rod catch had recovered to 141 fish and has continued to increase, averaging over 250 salmon a season. In 2010 a record rod catch of 419 fish was recorded. Sea trout catches have also recovered significantly, reaching almost 200 in each of the last 3 seasons.
There is now a significant opportunity to investigate fully the evidence for how stocking can be used for restoration and the extent to which the approach on the Carron may be applicable on other rivers. The research will use a number of methods to test these key questions, including genetics, electrofishing and detailed assessment of the biodiversity of the Carron catchment.
John Spencer, Principal & Chief Executive Inverness College UHI said “This is a significant development for the River Carron project, enabling the College to enhance research activity in this area and grow our research as a partner in the University of the Highlands and Islands. We are pleased to continue our long standing collaboration with the River Carron Improvement Association and welcome the involvement of the fish farming and feed industries. The collaborative nature of this funding recognises the need to build on the considerable achievements and commitment of staff to the project, and we look forward to developing this over the next three years.”
For more information, contact:
Kat MacMillan, Halogen Communications, (T) 0131 202 0120 (F) 0131 225 3757
kat@halogencom.com
Dr Melanie Smith, Head of Research Development, Inverness College UHI
(T) 01463 273080 melanie.smith@inverness.uhi.ac.uk
In November Wester Ross Fisheries Trust hosted a sea trout and arctic charr discovery week in the Carron catchment. The aims of the week were to try to assess the arctic charr populations in the catchment and to assess how far up the river sea trout were travelling to spawn and also the extent to which they were using the two large lochs, Dughaill and Sgamhain.
The week was a great success, recording good populations of charr in Loch Dughaill, where two different forms were thought to exist, and also in Loch Sgamhain where they have not been recorded for some years. They were also found in a loch high in the hills where they had never previously been recorded.
Arctic charr are of great interest to biologists. In contrast to other populations around the world Scottish populations are non-migratory and have been isolated in their lochs since the ice age, leading to differentiation between populations, much like Darwin’s finches. They even form different populations within single lochs, and it is thought that the surface feeding, pelagic fish and bottom feeding benthic fish in lochs such as Dughaill may be separate populations, showing genetic and morphological differences. They are thought to be particularly vulnerable to global warming and acidification, and despite North-West Scotland being one of their strongholds, their distribution is largely unknown.
The discovery week also helped illuminate the ways in which sea trout use the Carron catchment, and sea trout and finnock were captured in fyke, sweep and gill nets in Lochs Dughaill and Sgamhain. Fyke nets at the very top of the catchment captured fish which appeared to have been to sea and returned to spawn (pictured below). Scale analysis will hopefully reveal whether these large fish have migrated to sea or grown large feeding in the lochs for several years.
In 1936 and 1937 G. Herbert Nall assessed the sea trout population of Loch Dughaill, capturing in excess of one thousand fish. Wester Ross Fisheries Trust swept one of the bays used in Nall’s study and were pleased to record numbers of finnock and sea trout at the lower end of the loch. It was noticeable that a high proportion of these fish were immature finnock (pictured below), which may over-winter in the loch before returning to sea to feed in the spring. Scale samples were taken from all trout and will be analysed over the winter to try to assess which fish were genuine sea trout and which were loch trout.
2011 was another good year for the rotary screw smolt trap, as flows allowed efficient uninterrupted trapping through the majority of the smolt season. A total of 6757 salmon smolts were caught in the trap of which 293 could be identified as clearly being of stocked origin. 8 of these were fin-clipped smolts, and had originally been released as tagged fry in 2008. Most of these fish left the river in 2009 and 2010 as S1 and S2 smolts. The remaining 285 stocked smolts could be identified by their appearance, as they had been released into the river quite recently and were still distinguishable from river-reared fish. Of the 6464 smolts not identifiable as stocked fish, an unknown percentage would have been of stocked origin released at earlier life stages. Once stocked fish have spent some time in the river they can no longer be distinguished from wild fish. It is hoped that future research work on the Carron will allow us to accurately calculate the contribution of stocked and wild-spawned fish to the smolt run. The salmon smolt run peaked on the 27th of April when 843 smolts were found in the trap.
Although it is hard to correlate smolt trap captures with flow data as the trap becomes inefficient at higher flows and cannot be fished at all during periods of heavy rainfall, it is noticeable that in both 2010 and 2011 the peak of the smolt runs coincided with periods of lower flows, and in both years the main smolt run took place in the period immediately leading up to the new moon, with few fish being captured in the days either side of the full moon.
By releasing a known number of identifiable salmon smolts from upstream release ponds it was possible to estimate the efficiency of the trap in 2010 and 2011, allowing an estimation of the total size of the smolt run. The re-capture data suggested the trap captured about 17% of the smolts leaving the river. Using this figure, the actual smolt output of the River Carron during the 27 day 2011 monitoring period would have been close to 40,000.
A lesser number of sea trout smolts were caught in 2011 (346) and it appears that the trout smolt run takes place over a longer period than that of their salmon cousins. It is also possible that the in-river behaviour of the trout makes them less likely to enter the trap than the salmon. This would be the case if they were either inclined to stay closer to the river bed than the salmon, rather than travelling with the main current, or if the trout wander more in their descent, increasing their chances of avoiding the trap.
A number of other species were also caught in the trap. Most common of these are the eels. Declines in the number of European eels have been dramatic all across Britain in recent years, and it is noticeable that the screw trap has caught fewer eels per day in each consecutive year that it has been fished. Eels and elvers are an important food source for a wide variety of creatures and their decline may well increase predator pressure on the remaining fish.
Other creatures caught in the trap this year include a sea lamprey (pictured below), a number of stickleback and flounder and also minnows, a non-native invasive species in the Highlands which is proliferating in Lochs Sgamhain and Dughaill and certain parts of the river. The effects of this introduced species on salmon and trout populations are unknown.
08/04/2011
Most of the West Highlands received a good 24 hours of heavy rain on Wednesday (6th of April). The Carron catchment was no exception, and several temporary white-water torrents appeared on the hill-sides. The river rose very quickly, spilling over its banks at many points and carrying some very large debris with it.
Before (above) and during (below) the Spring flood.
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The loose gravel and cobbles that make up most of the river bed of the Carron provide excellent spawning and nursery habitat for both salmon and trout but are also highly mobile during spate flows, displacing unhatched eggs and young fry.
It is thought that a number of large spates during the 1990s may have contributed to the collapse in the Carron’s fish stocks, and this week’s flood was certainly large enough to displace large quantities of gravel. It was hoped that last year’s excellent rod-catch was indicative of an excellent spawning season for the wild fish. However, as this spate came at a time when young fry had not yet developed sufficient swimming capability to find shelter, many may have been lost. Similarly, unhatched eggs may have been crushed by shifting gravels or washed out of the river. Electro-fishing surveys later in the year will help determine whether the breeding season was a success.
The fishing season has begun on the Carron and a Spring-run salmon has already been caught. The female fish was caught (and released!) in the lower reaches of the river. It was carrying a number of egg-bearing sea lice indicating that it was fresh from the sea. A number of salmon kelts are also still present in the river, resting before their return to sea. A number of these fish, identifiable by panjet dye marks, were also caught in the Autumn and have been in the river for several months. Electro-fishing surveys later in the year will measure their spawning success.
Meanwhile at the hatcheries the eggs are developing and eyes are now visible in the ova. A number of sea-trout eggs have already hatched and the warmer weather in the past week should mean that the others will follow quickly.