Source: Newbury Today
The warning came after an Environment Agency electrofishing survey in order to assess the health of the fish population following pollution by the pesticde chlorpyrifos in July, which wiped out invertebrates on a 15km stretch of the upper river down to Hungerford.
EA Fisheries Team Leader, John Sutton, said:
“Although, to our knowledge, no fish were killed, we wanted to assess the condition they were in after their regular food supply was wiped out and whether they are losing weight or managing to find a living. We will have to wait for the full results but anecdotal evidence suggests many fish are thinner than expected and therefore not well equipped to cope with winter, when things will get tougher.
However we were encouraged to see the full range of expected species including the five main ones: brown trout, grayling, brook lamprey, bullheads and sticklebacks.”
He added:
“We noticed that, even three months after the incident, a cursory glance was enough to see a huge absence of common aquatic invertebrates such as shrimp. It’s likely that the fish have been surviving on mainly terrestrial insects such as hoverflies and midges blown from the bank into the water.”
The team will compare the results with those from routine tests conducted last year and return next spring to repeat the exercise.
