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Which UK Freshwater Species would you get rid of?


Dales

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I don't think the natural balance argument holds any water anymore.

I struggle to think of any freshwater environment other that a few highland tarns that isnt to a greater or lesser extent artificial. Many of our rivers have artificial courses, weirs, reinforced banks, managed (often non-native) bankside vegetation, are subject to agricultural runnoff, are populated by non-native inveribrates as well as fish and predated by non-native mink and cormerants. Hardley a pristine environment.

 

Even those parts of rivers like the Severn between Ironbridge and Bewdley that might look natural are anything but. Two centuries ago, the entire area was at the heart of the industrial revolution and lined with furnaces and factories and the legacy remains as there is almost as much ceramic material on the river bed as there are stones and of course, a very large proportion of the biomas is now barbel - a species that is not native to this watershed.

 

Pretending that species managemant is there to protect some sort of eden is simply laughable and while might be laudable to suggest the erradication of particular problem invaders, the reality is that once the genie is out of the bottle, it can't be put back in. The EA have totally failed to do anything about colonisation of UK waterways by barbel, zander, catfish, signal crayfish etc, etc, etc all they have done is spend millions of pounds of public moneyon what amount to publicity stunts because they know they can do nothing. The latest publicity stunt is the alledged erradication of topmouth gudgeon from several fisheries. Trust me, they'll be back.

Species caught in 2020: Barbel. European Eel. Bleak. Perch. Pike.

Species caught in 2019: Pike. Bream. Tench. Chub. Common Carp. European Eel. Barbel. Bleak. Dace.

Species caught in 2018: Perch. Bream. Rainbow Trout. Brown Trout. Chub. Roach. Carp. European Eel.

Species caught in 2017: Siamese carp. Striped catfish. Rohu. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Black Minnow Shark. Perch. Chub. Brown Trout. Pike. Bream. Roach. Rudd. Bleak. Common Carp.

Species caught in 2016: Siamese carp. Jullien's golden carp. Striped catfish. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Alligator gar. Rohu. Black Minnow Shark. Roach, Bream, Perch, Ballan Wrasse. Rudd. Common Carp. Pike. Zander. Chub. Bleak.

Species caught in 2015: Brown Trout. Roach. Bream. Terrapin. Eel. Barbel. Pike. Chub.

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Considering that this is make believe, I would make all of the Uk's species distributions how they were a few thousand years ago, essentialy just after the last ice age. I would have salmon in every river, shad and sturgeon in the large river systems, burbot in their native range and I'd even magic up the now extinct migratory whitefish species, the north sea houting. I'd also have the entire country covered in forest, bears, boars, wolves etc.

And man would only be a visitor to my green and pleasent land.

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Considering that this is make believe, I would make all of the Uk's species distributions how they were a few thousand years ago, essentialy just after the last ice age. I would have salmon in every river, shad and sturgeon in the large river systems, burbot in their native range and I'd even magic up the now extinct migratory whitefish species, the north sea houting. I'd also have the entire country covered in forest, bears, boars, wolves etc.

And man would only be a visitor to my green and pleasent land.

 

Most modern men would be very unlikely to survive hehehe

From a spark a fire will flare up

English by birth, Cockney by the Grace of God

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