Climate Pressure Sends Welsh Salmon Stocks Plunging

[hatrack]

WALES has long been regarded as a heartland of salmon but our nation's stock is dwindling, it is revealed today. We have more rivers with salmon than at any point since the Industrial Revolution, after the closure of heavy industries and the clean-up of the Rivers Taff, Rhymney, Tawe, Ogmore and Ebbw, in South Wales. Their abundance has declined dramatically, however, in such strongholds as the River Wye in Mid Wales and the River Dee in North Wales.

Rod catches of salmon on the River Wye declined from 7,684 in 1967 to a low of 357 in 2002, according to the Environment Agency. And many Welsh chefs say Wye salmon, a traditional Welsh dish, is sadly off their menu, as a result. Rob Evans, from the Environment Agency fisheries, said the main reason for the worrying decline of salmon stocks across Central and Northern Wales was climate change in the north-eastern Atlantic.


Mr Evans explained, "Salmon feed at sea before returning as adults to their river of birth to reproduce, migrations cover thousands of miles - it is one of the wonders of the natural world. "Juvenile salmon, called smolts, are leaving our rivers but fewer are returning now. "The main cause of the problem is linked to climate change affecting currents and temperatures and reducing feeding opportunities at sea. "More die out at sea before coming back to Welsh rivers.


"Scientists on some rivers are able to count juvenile salmon leaving the river for the sea in spring and then count them back as adults after a year or more, using traps. "Evidence of this is coming in from all countries with Atlantic salmon." He said figures show a marked decline in marine survival for salmon from the end of the 1980s to the present day. Emily Lewis-Brown, WWF Cymru's research officer, said, "Oxygen levels in Welsh rivers have dropped as the water warms up. "And long, dry summers are reducing water levels in our rivers, which salmon don't like.

EDIT

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_objectid=17055089&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=salmon-stocks-dive-as--climate-change-bites---name_page.html

[redqueen]

1. Anyone else get that feeling about the environment...

sort of like the one you get as you're nearing the top of the first hill of a rollercoaster? (Or for the Europeans around here... the last hill.)

:(

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Sort of...

Except rollercoasters usually go around in a circle, whereas this one ends in a thousand foot drop off a cliff. :(

[redqueen]

3. Yes...

I used to believe people when they said the earth would be fine... that we'd be hurt but the earth would recover.

After reading about the runaway greenhouse effect... I wonder why they still say that.

[Dead_Parrot]

4. It would depend on the definition of "fine"

I can't see Earth turning into another Venus, if that's what you've got in mind - we're too far out, and even with our current levels of greenhous gasses, we're still less than 1/10th of that which "we" have had. But I can easily see us wiping out 95% of life in the next few hundred years, which might be a problem...

[Boomer]

5. What really pisses me off...

... is that I'll die long before getting to see what new life forms arise in the place of the victims of our Great Die-off, humans included.

I'm CURIOUS, I want to know, dammit.

[Dead_Parrot]

6. Well, if you take up Hinduism...

...you could come back as one and find out. :silly:

[Boomer]

7. The timing is about right

It would probably take me a few hundred million billion years to rise the level of a sentient being (in whatever form they will be). Given my grouchy ill temper, I suspect I'm wracking up some seriously negative karma this time around.

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Well, look on the bright side...

At least you'll miss the really nasty stuff, swimming around as an amoeba. :D

[hunter]

12. I intend to be part of a great fungal colony.

None of that swimming around as an amoeba for me, please.

[Dead_Parrot]

13. Not a bad idea...

...But I'd recomend joining freerepublic.com, just to make sure you like it. :)

[hunter]

14. Epidermophyton floccosum won't be around, I trust.

:rofl:

[Dead_Parrot]

15. I'm glad I've eaten...

[hatrack]

9. Great book on the topic - "After Man - A Zoology Of The Future'

Dougal Dixon, whose done a bunch of books on dinosaurs, both for kids and as a scientist, is the author, and it's fascinating - essentially speculative evolutionary biology. Very cool.

[Dead_Parrot]

10. Cool indeed...

From the wiki...
---
Night Stalker, a flightless bat from Batavia. It supports its body on its arms, which are strong since they were once used for flight. It uses its legs for clutching its prey and slashing. The night stalker is blind and uses sonar to locate its prey. These five-foot tall monsters hunt in packs.

Pfrit, an insectivorous mammal with a hollow lance-like mouth for eating mosquito larvae. It is the smallest mammal known, growing only two inches excluding its tail. It is so light it can even walk on water.

Vortex, a whale-like descendant of penguins. Its massive beak is laced with slits for sifting ocean water for plankton. At 40 feet long, it is the biggest animal on Earth (whales having gone extinct long before).
---
I feel a trip to the library comming on. Thanks Hatrack... :)

[redqueen]

11. Well that's good news!

Because yes, that's kind of what I was thinking.

:dunce: