PROFESSOR BARRIE RICKARDS | |
Professor Barrie Rickards is President of the Lure Angling Society, and President of the National Association of Specialist Anglers as well as a very experienced and successful specialist angler with a considerable tally of big fish to his credit. He is author of several fishing books, including the classic work ‘Fishing For Big Pike’, co-authored with the late Ray Webb and only recently his first novel, ‘Fishers On The Green Roads’ was published. He has been an angling writer in newspapers and magazines for nigh on four decades. Barrie takes a keen interest in angling politics. Away from angling Barrie is a reader in Palaeobiology at the University of Cambridge, a Fellow of Emmanuel College and a curator of the Sedgwick Museum of Geology. |
WHAT IS MEANT BY NON-NATIVE SPECIES?
For those of you who would like angling to have considerable political strength, looking after your interests, you might like to know that while the NFA might be having problems (again!) the Specialist Anglers Alliance (SAA) is positively involved in numerous activities. If you want to support the SAA directly yourself – and all support is welcome and empowering, believe me – then contact Mike Heylin on saauk100@hotmail.com or chris.burt1@btopenworld.com. One of the issues they are involved with is potential legislation on non-native species (a review of non-native species policies has just ended its consultation period). I seem to have read a great deal on this subject and many issues are unclear to me, not least being what is meant by non-native species? Do they mean zander, for example, or catfish? Or do they mean species that are not native for a particular water? Or perhaps it relates only to moving livebaits about! If they mean species that are not native to a particular water then I do hope they will take action of some kind against the Scottish equivalent of English Nature who planned the introduction of a whitefish species into two lochs that did not have them previously. Are the authorities planning a halt to any movement of fish? This would leave the ecosystems as they are at present, and certainly there’s enough biodiversity nationwide to keep us all happy. Or do they plan eradication of, say, ruffe from Loch Lomond (and who is sure they were not there in the first place, because Lomond is very close to the previously-known northern limit of the species). And what is to happen about carp and catfish coming in from the Continent? Some people are now working very hard in this regard and they deserve more support that they are getting. And then we come to nature itself. Are waterhens to be prosecuted if they transfer eggs from one water to another? Incidentally, its probably a fallacy that birds transfer eggs which have stuck to their feet. After all, in order for them to stick to their feet the birds must have had their feet in the very areas where eggs were being deposited and fertilised. It wouldn’t be enough to come along ten minutes later because by then the glue on the eggs would have hardened onto the substrate. It’s possible, but unlikely. What is much more likely is something I once watched at Woburn wildlife park – waterhens carrying beakfuls of green weed from one water to another! That weed could have easily had eggs on it. And the waterhens were not interested in eating fish eggs, only in building nests. When they do so they sometimes use green weed at water level, topping it off later with dry material. To be quite serious: nature itself will move species about as it always has done. Eradication of transfers would be nonsensical – attempted eradication I should say. They’ve tried that in western Ireland and it is a total waste of time and money. Usually, of course, they waste someone else’s money, like yours and mine. The Labour and Conservative Parties The Conservatives (dreadful bunch) have never wittered on about a charter because they see no problem with angling. Angling is. Full stop. But Labour includes plenty of people who are opposed to angling, make no mistake about that. They are not all Martin Salters by any means. Over many years of dealing with politicians of all persuasions I have to say that most of angling’s problems locally come from Labour people. Let me give you an example. When the Mayor of Redditch (Ken Smith, a Labour angler) was trying to set up a National Angling Museum on Council land in Redditch, Bruno Broughton, Martin Gay, and myself were asked to address the Council on the merits of the idea. There was, by the end of the evening, widespread support for the plan, but, and this is my point, the only opposition came from some Labour councillors. In time some of them changed their minds, but some of them did not. The plan did not materialise for other reasons as it happened. Another Council, Liberal this time, were not actually opposed to the idea of an angling museum: They simply gave the site to a supermarket chain instead! No, I am very, very wary of Labour politicians talking about angling. And I am quite certain we do not need a charter from them. The previous charter labour produced was terrible! I am aware that some experienced anglers such as David Bird had an input in it, but I cannot believe that the bulk of the text was by them. If it was, then I’d have to revise a few opinions! Still battling away! Perhaps I should give up I hear you say! Maybe so, in fact, after 25 years representing anglers on the Environment Agency (or its predecessors) I finally resigned for a bit of peace. So what happened? I was asked to chair the EA investigation into water resources in NW Norfolk! So that’s what I’m doing primarily, apart from SAA work, and PAC work, and a few other things…… I first joined an angling committee in 1954, as a secretary. So next year I’ll have done 50 years continuously on one committee or another, local or national. Maybe next year is the time to stop, or the time to stop taking on new work. Just been to see ‘Finding Nemo’! It’s a really enjoyable film. Less enjoyable is the thought that thousands of Americans are flushing fish down the loo. I have only just set myself up with a cold water tank with gudgeon, rudd, roach and tench (so far). A Disney spokesperson said they disapproved of keeping clown fish (Nemo) in tanks. Well, if the fish is small and the tank is large, what’s the problem? Disney films are grossly sentimentalised, of course, but I thought everyone understood that. They’re not supposed to be taken seriously, though it seems PETA has done so. Unimpressed by Anti anglers the McCartneys and Loony Bardot So now we have herpes in Kois! But, have you noticed, it is always commercial enterprises from which diseases appear? Never nature – or rarely, and certainly not anglers transporting bait whatever the powers that be have to say. Shakespeare’s Targa monofil Have you seen the adverts for the rather nice Herring plates (eg the Narrow boat)? It said “It’s spring…the river is coming to life…” And it has anglers coarse fishing. In spring? I wish. Maybe they did in the dawn of the horse-drawn narrow boat. Before my time… really. Might buy one. They’re nice. Maybe two. The Sore with a Bare head SETA and Water Trading I know this has to be wrong because I am the chairman of just such an EA investigation into water resources/abstraction in NW Norfolk, and it has to be said that the structure of aquatic ecosystems is to forefront of all discussions/plans. Not only that, but the stakeholder groups include English Nature, the SETA, (and anglers generally, through Terry Mansbridge) and others with the ecosystem at heart. She refers, correctly to a ‘tangled web’ in relation to abstraction: it is exactly for this reason that the reviews are taking place. In the end each review will recommend to the EA a package of proposals which, in their views will protect the environment whilst at the same time go as far as is reasonable in safeguarding the interests of various stakeholders (which includes you and I through to the water companies, for example). So, the review teams (CAMS) make recommendations and the EA, it’s anticipated, will be more or less obliged to carry them through. There are no obvious political overtones in this work: in the end it will save money, yes, and waste. And it is crucial that all stakeholders, such as SETA, have a serious input in order to safeguard their own worries. |