Britain's Game Fishes: Celebration and Conservation of Salmonids (Pelagic Monographs, 1, Band 1) - Hardcover

Dr. Mark Everard; Paul Knight

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1907807357 ISBN 13: 9781907807350

Verlag: Pelagic Publishing - IPSUK, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

This book is dedicated to the realisation that rivers, lakes, estuaries and coasts must be waters fit for the future, serving the wellbeing of all species: fishes, humans and all water-dependent life. Britain's Game Fishes provides an in-depth natural history of each native salmonid species in the British Isles: Atlantic salmon, brown trout or sea trout, Arctic charr, grayling and whitefishes, along with the familiar alien species, the rainbow trout. In the second section of the book, Everard and Knight detail the pressures these fish face from human activities such as changes in land use, agriculture, housing needs, and their concomitant pollution effects, as well as water abstraction, habitat destruction and climate change. The authors examine the cost to salmonid species of high-seas fisheries, coastal and estuarine netting, angling and fish farming. Highlighting the importance of fishes of the salmon family for the wellbeing of society, both as food and recreation, this book shows their critical importance as ambassadors of the wild iconic indicators of the health of the environment.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr Mark Everard has a lifelong obsession with fish, water and the aquatic environment. Author of numerous books, magazine and scientific publications, many of them addressing fish and fishing, Mark is also a regular contributor to TV and radio. He is an adviser to government in the UK, India and South Africa on the sustainable use and management of water and other ecosystems, having also advised and conducted research right across the world. Mark is science adviser to the Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA) as well as vice-president of the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES), fellow of the Linnean Society, founding director of the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART), and a life member and former council member of both the Freshwater Biological Association (FBA) and the Angling Trust. Mark finds time to fish whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself, but most particularly in rivers accessible from his home in North Wiltshire where he lives with his partner Jackie, daughter Daisy and many tanks of fish. Paul Knight has been involved with fish for most of his working life, including catching them as a commercial fisherman and angler, growing them as a trout farmer and now trying to conserve them as Chief Executive of the fisheries environmental charity, the Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA). He is a Council member and Fellow of the Institute of Fisheries Management (IFM), and spends his time attempting to influence government departments and agencies to follow policies that will protect the aquatic environment and all its dependent species. He writes for various fisheries-related and environmental magazines, and has successfully published a book of angling tales, Amazing Fishing Stories. He lives with his wife, Angela, and son, Archie, in Wiltshire.

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Britain's Game Fishes

Celebration And Conservation of Salmonids

By Mark Everard, Paul Knight

Pelagic Publishing

Copyright © 2013 Mark Everard and Paul Knight
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-907807-35-0

Contents

Authors' biographies, 
Preface, 
Part 1 The native game fishes of the British Isles, 
1 A natural history of Britain's game fishes, 
2 The Atlantic salmon and its amazing life-cycle, 
3 Brown trout or sea trout, 
4 The Arctic charr, 
5 The grayling, 
6 The whitefishes, 
7 Rainbow trout: the familiar alien, 
8 Realising the value of the British game fishes, 
Part 2 British game fishes under pressure, 
9 The making and breaking of the modern world, 
10 A brief unnatural history of the British game fishes, 
11 Net results, 
12 Muddying the waters, 
13 Down on the farm, 
14 Salmonids under pressure, 
Part 3 Game fishes for the future, 
15 Sea change, 
16 Changing rules, 
17 Changing values, 
18 We the people, 
19 Game fishes for tomorrow, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

A natural history of Britain's game fishes

The fishes of the salmon family are many, varied and widespread. Six species are native to British waters, all requiring the highest environmental quality. Four of these we think of as the 'mainstream' game fishes: the Atlantic salmon, the brown trout or sea trout, the Arctic charr, and the grayling. Two less common species are whitefishes, or coregonids, which are not game fishes in the sporting sense of the word. Whilst we will touch upon some details of the natural history of the whitefishes in passing, this book is about the four main game species and so it is to the natural history of these four that we will devote most attention. Then, towards the end of Part 1, we touch upon a 'familiar alien', the rainbow trout, introduced here from its natural range in the Pacific coastal catchments of North America and so in no sense native, but now so widespread in our lakes and rivers that we have at least to give it a brief 'honourable mention'.

1.1 The salmon family

The salmon family, known scientifically as Salmonidae and often referred to as the 'salmonids', is the only living family of the order Salmoniformes within the greater group of ray-finned fishes. Globally, the salmon family includes the salmon, the trout, the charr, the graylings, and the freshwater whitefishes. In evolutionary terms, all of these groups share common ancestors dating back to the middle Eocene era (roughly 37–47 million years ago).

Typically, the fishes of the salmon family are slender, with pelvic fins placed far back on the underside of the body and a conspicuous rayless adipose (or 'fatty') fin towards the rear of the back, behind the single dorsal fin and before the caudal, or tail, fin. The salmonids also possess a fleshy, pointed flap above the pelvic fin base. The scales are rounded and the tail is generally forked, although can become square or even convex in some older trout specimens. The mouths of most of the salmon, trout and charr contain a single row of sharp teeth, whilst the whitefishes have only weak teeth, and grayling have none at all. The largest members of the salmon family, including the Atlantic salmon, can reach a body length up to 2 metres (six feet). The smallest member of the family is the pygmy whitefish (Coregonus coulteri) found in Lake Superior, at just 13 centimetres (5.1 inches) from snout to tail as an adult.

All fishes are equipped with a host of senses, the relative prominence of which is adapted to their particular life habits. Carp, catfishes, eels and other groups that often thrive in murky waters are liberally equipped with chemical sensory organs across their bodies with which they taste/smell (the sensations merge into a 'general chemical sense') their surroundings, including gradients of chemicals within it. The lateral line system, extending along the flanks of most fish species, including the salmonids, senses changes in water pressure, providing information about currents, obstructions to flow and other creatures moving in the vicinity. Sight is often well developed in fishes adapted to a clear-water, predatory lifestyle, such as the members of the salmon family. However, unlike those of humans and other animals, which are forward facing, the eyes of trout, salmon and many other fishes are on the sides of the head, which equips them with a near-complete field of vision but not the depth perception of our stereo sight. The fishes of the salmon family compensate for this with good colour distinction, better to differentiate detail, but there is also mounting evidence that they can discern polarisation of light, which is invaluable in determining fine details of prey organisms under clear, rippling water.

All members of the salmon family spawn in freshwater. Many stay in freshwater lakes, rivers and streams throughout their lives. Others are anadromous, meaning that they migrate to sea for a marine adult phase before returning to fresh waters to spawn. These migratory habits, and their ability to run to sea, mean that many members of the salmon family have penetrated many new waters left behind by the retreat of glaciers following the last ice age. Some formerly seagoing populations have subsequently become landlocked, including, for example, the Sebago salmon (Salmo salar sebago, which is a subspecies of the Atlantic salmon) in the northern Atlantic USA, and the taimen or Siberian salmon (Hucho taimen) of the Caspian Sea region. The Artic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) and many of the whitefish species are also commonly landlocked, inhabiting cool, clear freshwater habitats and generally running tributary streams to spawn.

The natural distribution of the salmonid species in the northern hemisphere has been considerably enhanced by their migratory habits and adaptation to cool, clean waters. They are far better at spreading to, and thriving in, these cooler, nutrient-poor waters than other families of fishes widespread and common in the northern hemisphere, such as the carps (family Cyprinidae) in Eurasia and the catastomids (family Catastomidae) in North America. The geographic range of the salmon family is therefore broad across the northern hemisphere, with members found naturally as far south as Spain and Portugal and northwards well into the Arctic circle regions of Norway, Russia, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and Alaska.

In The History and Topography of Ireland, Giraldus Cambrensis (or 'Gerald of Wales' c. 1146–c.1223), a medieval clergyman and chronicler of his times, stated that, '... pike, perch, roach, gardon, gudgeon, minnow, loach, bullheads and verones ...' were absent from Ireland, also observing that all the Irish species of freshwater fish known to him could live in salt water. Trout, salmon and Arctic charr were prominent amongst the eleven migratory or brackish-tolerant species of freshwater fishes (also including pollan, sticklebacks, eels, smelt, shad, three species of lamprey and the increasingly rare sturgeon) that were able to colonise Ireland's freshwater systems without man's interference. Grayling are notably absent from this list, lacking any sea-going life stage.

All members of the salmon family are predatory, feeding on small animals such as crustaceans, aquatic insects and their larvae, as well as smaller fish. Within these general characteristics, the salmonids exhibit remarkable plasticity of form and lifestyle, exemplified by the wide...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Pelagic Publishing - IPSUK
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1907807357
• ISBN 13: 9781907807350
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 232
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland