This season, on top of surveying rivers in the District such as the Teith, Forth and Allan we also monitored fish populations in the Rivers Almond and Avon in support of RiverLife: Almond & Avon. This monitoring formed part of the bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund as many projects which restore or improve the water environment are not monitored due to lack of funds. The Heritage Lottery Fund has allowed the Trust to create monitoring plans for each project to research how these improvements are benefiting the water environment.
In order to produce a robust dataset for both catchments, 45 sites were fully quantitative surveyed i.e. using stop nets and fishing the areas several times to get an accurate number of fish within a given area. This was more time consuming than usual and thanks to the regular downpours experienced all summer, we were very worried that we wouldn’t be able to complete our planned surveys. In the end we managed to finish everything with the able assistance of our electrofishing stalwart, George from Slamannan Angling Protective Association, plus two new volunteers – Kevin and Ian. Kevin & Ian both attended the RiverLife electrofishing training course at the start of the season and shaped into very competent field surveyors. They were also extremely patient with the numerous last minute cancellations the weather inflicted on us, which was most helpful! Their time is greatly appreciated and a massive thank you goes out to all the groups and volunteers who helped with electrofishing over the summer.
Now, on to the results. As usual, only a few salmon juveniles were found in the River Almond, around the regular area downstream of Mid Calder weir. It is expected that once the RiverLife project eases fish passage at Mid Calder weir (scheduled for 2019) along with the other ones in the catchment we will find some salmon further upstream. Some sites in the Almond gave cause for concern when it seemed that trout had all but disappeared only to be replaced by bullhead, but there were a few surprises when sites previously dominated by bullhead yielded a lot of trout. Perhaps the populations are in a constant state of flux in this regard. Hopefully the coming years of monitoring will shed some light on this.
Salmon spawning on the Avon seemed to have been most successful in parts of the main stem, with some upstream tributaries giving disappointing results. We will have to keep an eye on this as the RiverLife project progresses. A series of instream improvements in the upper Avon are due to commence in 2018, and this may help production at the top of the catchment. The Avon is one of only a few rivers in the Forth District where salmon are known to spawn right the way to the top of the system (the Allan Water and Teith being the others).
On top of monitoring fish populations, other biological monitoring will take place thanks to the Funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Monitoring invertebrates will also take place across both catchments to record changes to invertebrate communities. This work was carried out at the end of the summer and results are still being processed. On top of staff collecting samples, the Trust also has a citizen science project which is providing training to volunteers to monitor riverfly which will also help collect information which can be used as a high level indicator for change, either from pollution events, changing water quality or from works undertaken by the project. If you would like to get involved with monitoring for invertebrates or fish in the rivers Almond or Avon please get in touch.
