New Hatchery Opens
The Spey Fishery Board is delighted to announce the opening oftheir new salmon hatchery facility at Sandbank on the river Tervie, atributary of the Livet. Construction began in late 2000 and wascompleted during April this year. The new site offers an excellentsupply of high quality water at low temperature allowing thedevelopment of juveniles to closely follow that of wild fish. Afurther improvement was incorporated through the installation of aHex-Hatch system that allows the eggs to be more easilymaintained.
Superintendent Jim Gray supervised construction and together withthe bailiff squad furnished the new facility with 800 000 eggs duringspring. The cold winter slowed the development of the eggs this yearbut they have successfully hatched this month. Similar to previousyears a variety of stocks from around the catchment are underdevelopment at the hatchery. Some of these will be released soon asunfed fry while others will be retained for feeding and a proportionwill be micro-tagged to monitor their contribution to the Speyfishery.
Juvenile surveys indicate that healthy salmon populations arepresent in many areas of the Spey catchment. Therefore the Boardconsider that large- scale stocking would not be a sensiblemanagement policy for the river. Some gaps do exist in the wildpopulations, in particular above Spey Dam, and the Board, through theprudent use of hatchery reared stock and careful monitoring, areattempting to improve the salmon production in these areas. Buildinga hatchery requires a considerable investment and the Board areimmensely grateful to the Moray, Badenoch and Strathspey EnterpriseCompany for their financial assistance. Thanks also go to all theghillies that assisted with broodstock capture during winter2000.
Catch and Release Update
By the 1st of May 2001, 61 springers were Floy tagged andreleased. Of these 4 re-captures were reported from Easter Elchies,Delagyle, Knockando and Grantown, giving a recapture rate of 6%. Allfour were re-released to complete their upstream migration.
SPEY FISHERY BOARD RESEARCHOFFICE
1 NETHER BORLUM COTTAGE
KNOCKANDO
MORAYSHIRE
TEL: 01340 810841 FAX 01340810842
E-MAIL – SPEY_RESEARCH_TRUST@COMPUSERVE.COM
