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Barbel on Countryfile last night

Andy Frances

Administrator
Staff member
Hi all,

Did anyone see Countryfile on BBC 1 last night. They had a piece about the Trent and showed the stocking of barbel and the fish farm at Calverton. I couldn't hear it very well because I had two little ones asking me to play Top Trumps, the pictures looked interesting though...

BBC iPlayer - Countryfile - East Midlands

Cheers,

Andy F
 
They get the stock fish from the Scunthorpe Pisces stretch of the Trent one of the people who was on Countryfile is a member of the ABF they take the eggs & milt & return the fish
 
They were talking about tens of thousands of fish being produced, but we still have rivers like the Teme where stocks are a fraction of what was there 10 years ago.
So I am not confident they are going to the right place, or are they just otter feed !
Mike
 
Not a single mention of otter predation. No surprises there then. Between Townyfile and the EA you have the worlds largest otter appreciation society.
 
Typical Countryfacile, it's a shame they didn't expand more upon why the Trent became so polluted, what was done and is being done to improve water quality, why restocking is still necessary (and that continuously having to restock is really an admission of failure...)

They recently did a feature on grouse shooting, in particular the 'benefits' of intensive heather burning. It was completely one-sided which was a real shame given what we now know about how damaging intensive moorland management is to the environment - particularly to the aquatic ecology of downstream rivers. A real poke in the eye to those who fish rivers like the Swale, Wharfe, Nidd etc.
 
"Why the Trent became polluted"? What 30 years ago?... Been a while since then aint it? Trent today is as clean as a clean thing, at least the salmon and trout seem to think so.
 
All very interesting, good PR and very PC......no mention of otters, no mention as to why we need to stock barbel on such a grand scale anyway, no mention of the decline of barbel populations, no mention of what proportion of the aquacultured barbel goes into still waters, and no mention of the sexing of the barbel before stocking, no mention of the diabolical survival rates of these mini barbel once stocked into rivers, some say its as low as 1%......all in all bubble gum telly, chew it a bit then spit it out.....
 
Surely it is time for the Angling Trust to approach Countryfile with the suggestion for a piece on 'our declining rivers'...
 
Didn`t the E.A try something similar on the Bristol Avon at Claverton a few years back ?
The general consensus locally was that the introduction was at the wrong time of the year for them to have a chance of survival,although that could just be here say and conjecture.
 
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