Salmon & Trout Association

Game anglers for fish, people, the environment

Salmon and Trout Association: Research

Charitable status provides us with exciting new opportunities to extend our in-house environmental research into the issues directly affecting our native fisheries and water courses. We are preparing to support and take part in scientific research work, over the next three years, directly relevant to game anglers and fisheries managers. We are increasing our partnership working, to help develop sound scientific evidence to support our lobbying work.

We strongly believe that lobbying supported by evidence from peer reviewed science will strengthen the voice of fisheries.

Internships: The Salmon and Trout Association has opportunities for interns to gain experience working on fisheries and environmental research and policy, for more information click here

Briefing Papers

Much of our research to date has been literature reviews, bringing together the evidence from many diverse projects on a particular issue into one referenced paper. These are invaluable in allowing us to present concise evidence to support our advisory and influencing work. They also show up gaps in present knowledge that require further investigation, and this informs the projects which we are presently attempting to fund.

Current Briefing Papers;

Current Projects;

Assessing the efficacy of channel bank fencing schemes for reducing sediment pressures on salmonid spawning gravels.
Partnership between; the Salmon and Trout Association, ADAS and the West Country Rivers Trust. Funding from; Defra and the Salmon and Trout Trust (for further details about the Trust; click here)

Project description;
Recognition of the need to mitigate diffuse pollution pressures, including those associated with sediment transfers, has resulted in various localised catchment management initiatives. Defra’s preferred 44 mitigation options for controlling diffuse pollution, including sediment, are currently outlined in the Diffuse Pollution Inventory User Manual.

In order to assist Catchment Sensitive Farming Officers (CSFO’s) and other watercourse managers to select appropriate sediment mitigation methods, improved understanding of the efficacy of individual options is urgently required. There is currently a lack of empirical information on the effectiveness of mitigation options. As a result, recent sediment policy support for Defra, involving modelling studies, has been forced to adopt expert judgement in relation to method efficacy.

A previous study of the Rivers Camel, Fal, Fowey, Lynher, Plym, Tamar, Tavy and Yealm confirmed that eroding channel banks represented the principal source of the fine sediment ingressing and damaging spawning redds in the SW of England. The siltation of spawning redds has been widely reported as a cause of declining fish populations.

Since the initial study, a number of means e.g. the TAMAR 2000 SUPPORT (Sustainable Practices Project for the River Tamar) project has been used to help implement channel bank fencing programmes to control sediment loss to the incubation environment in the SW of England.

The project, therefore, will revisit sites in the SW of England in order to re-apportion sediment sources in those areas targeted by channel bank fencing. Such work will provide invaluable information on the efficacy of bank fencing programmes.

The proposed work could be rolled out at national scale to provide guidance for management schemes targeting the protection of salmonid spawning habitats.

Stillwater Fly Abundance Study

S&TA has recently launched its new Stillwater Fly Abundance Study in the winter of 2008.

S&TA has successfully operated its Riverfly Abundance Study since 2002. This evolved from the Chalkstreams Millennium Survey instigated by Peter Hayes and Allan Frake in 2000. The results of that Study, which is live and updated each year from forms completed by our members, were largely responsible for bringing the plight of aquatic invertebrates to public attention, and for encouraging the Environment Agency (EA) to join the Riverfly Partnership.

We are looking to do the same for Stillwater flies as we are doing for flowing water invertebrates. The idea is to measure the abundance (or otherwise) of stillwater fly life across the UK, and then to monitor changes by updating it annually. We are looking for anglers, clubs and fishery managers to take an active part in the project, and thus to get as many forms filled in as possible across all the stillwaters in the UK. Every form filled in will be a piece of evidence which we can use to understand what is going on with the fly life in our stillwaters, and the data produced will enable us to bring any necessary pressure to bear on the owners, managers, and regulators of those stillwaters both locally and nationally. It will help define our policies to influence national decision making over the management and conservation of the UK’s Stillwater fisheries.

For further details see: Stillwater Survey

Selection of Proposed Projects

PhD: The impact of Abstraction on the aquatic ecology
Production of educational leaflets for children on the water environment
Fly Life Partnership: Data collection system, compatible with EA BYOSIS system
Educational Atlantic salmon story book for distribution in primary schools
Identification of genetic makeup of brown trout
PhD: Assessing the impact of endocrine disruptors on the sustainability of brown trout
In-depth study of the impact of marine aquaculture on wild salmonids to support lobbying
Pilot educational project (assessing potential for national roll-out) in North West England to reconnect 250 school children with rivers, their fish and habitats, showing their importance to the broader community

If you would like to help support our important research work, please Join Now or visit Donations

Details of the above projects, together with a breakdown of costings, are available from Paul Knight or Janina Gray at Head Office – 020 7283 5838.