River Fowey SAP Consultation Item Type monograph Publisher Environment Agency Download date 29/09/2021 01:23:52 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/1834/27361 River Fowey Salmon Action Plan – Consultation Document Table of Contents Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 1 List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ 2 List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 4 PART 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 7 PART 2. DESCRIPTION OF THE CATCHMENT ............................................................ 8 PART 3. DESCRIPTION OF THE FISHERIES (ROD AND NET). ............................... 15 3.1.1 The River Fowey rod fishery. ................................................................................. 15 3.1.2 The River Fowey commercial net fishery. .............................................................. 16 3.1.3 Additional legislation of relevance to the salmonid fishery. .................................. 17 3.2 CATCHES AND CATCH EFFORT (ROD AND NET). .............................................. 18 3.2.1 River Fowey rod catches. ........................................................................................ 18 3.2.2 River Fowey net catches ......................................................................................... 21 3.2.3 Sea trout rod and net catches. ................................................................................. 23 3.3 PARTICIPATION AND FISHERY VALUE. .............................................................. 24 3.3.1 Participation. ........................................................................................................... 24 3.3.2 Economic Evaluation of the Salmon Fishery.......................................................... 24 3.3.3 Other Aspects of Economic Value .......................................................................... 27 3.3.4 Impact of the rod fishery on the economy. ............................................................. 27 PART 4. DESCRIPTION OF STOCKS, CURRENT STATUS AND TRENDS. ............ 29 4.1 STOCK MONITORING. ............................................................................................... 29 4.1.1 Adults. ..................................................................................................................... 29 4.1.2 Juveniles. ................................................................................................................. 32 4.2 JUVENILE ABUNDANCE........................................................................................... 32 4.2.1 Salmon Fry abundance ............................................................................................ 33 4.2.2 Salmon Parr abundance........................................................................................... 34 4.2.3. Trout Fry and Trout Parr abundance ...................................................................... 34 4.2.4. Other Fish species .................................................................................................. 35 4.3 DISTRIBUTION OF SPAWNING AND UTILISATION OF THE CATCHMENT. .. 35 PART 5. ASSESSMENT OF STOCK AND FISHERY PERFORMANCE. .................... 39 5.1 CONSERVATION LIMITS .......................................................................................... 40 5.1.1 Historic egg deposition and compliance assessment .............................................. 42 5.2 FRESHWATER PRODUCTION .................................................................................. 43 5.3 DIVERSITY and FITNESS ........................................................................................... 43 PART 6. LIMITING FACTORS. ......................................................................................... 44 6.1 Fishery limiting factors for the River Fowey ................................................................. 44 6.2 Biological limiting factors for the River Fowey ............................................................ 44 6.3 Environmental limiting factors for the River Fowey ..................................................... 45 6.4 Issues .............................................................................................................................. 45 PART 7. ISSUES AND ACTIONS ....................................................................................... 47 Inadequate knowledge of factors impacting upon juvenile survival in the River Fowey 47 Monitoring of adult upstream migration .......................................................................... 47 Habitat degradation .......................................................................................................... 47 Diminishing run size of salmon ....................................................................................... 48 Illegal fishing ................................................................................................................... 49 Exploitation of mixed salmon stocks in distant water fisheries ....................................... 49 Restrictions to upstream salmon migration...................................................................... 49 Potential mortalities due to in river abstractions.............................................................. 49 1 River Fowey Salmon Action Plan – Consultation Document Population dynamics ........................................................................................................ 49 PART 8. FUNDING THE PLAN .......................................................................................... 51 8.1 THE FUNDING BACKGROUND................................................................................ 51 8.2 CURRENT ACTIONS. ................................................................................................. 51 8.3 COLLABORATIVE FUNDING. .................................................................................. 52 PART 9. THE CONSULTATION PROCESS. ................................................................... 53 PART 10. APPENDICES ...................................................................................................... 54 APPENDIX (1) Setting Conservation Limits (CL) and Assessing compliance. ................. 54 APPENDIX (2) Limiting factors in the marine phase of the salmon life cycle. ................. 57 PART 11. GLOSSARY .......................................................................................................... 60 PART 12. REFERENCES. .................................................................................................... 63 List of Figures Figure 1 - Map of River Fowey catchment .............................................................................. 10 Figure 2 - Declared rod catch of salmon for the River Fowey – 1952 to 2001 ....................... 18 Figure 3 - Relative proportions of pre and post 1st June salmon within the total declared rod catch - 1964 to 2001. ........................................................................................ 19 Figure 4 - November and December declared rod catches of salmon as a percentage of the total post 1st June rod catch - 1964 to 2001. ................................................. 20 Figure 5 - Total declared salmon net catch for the River Fowey – 1952 to 2002 ................... 21 Figure 6 - “Spring” and “Summer” components of the total annual declared net catch of salmon - 1963 to 2002 ............................................................................... 22 Figure 7 - Declared sea trout rod and net catch - River Fowey – 1955 to 2001. .................... 23 Figure 8 - Fisheries Classification Scheme – River Fowey–Salmon fry (0+) 2000 ............... 36 Figure 9 - Fisheries Classification Scheme -River Fowey-Salmon Parr (>=1+) 2000 ........... 37 Figure 10 - Fisheries Classification Scheme–River Fowey–Trout fry (0+) 2000 ................... 38 Figure 11 - Fisheries Classification Scheme – River Fowey -Trout parr (>=1+) 2000 ........... 39 Figure 12 - Diagrammatic stock recruitment curve ................................................................. 40 Figure 13 - River Fowey historic egg deposition compliance ................................................. 42 Figure 14 - Limiting factors impacting upon the salmon life cycle. ........................................ 46 2 River Fowey Salmon Action Plan – Consultation Document List of Tables Table 1 - RQO Summary – Review of Water Quality Compliance data for 2001 .................... 9 Table 2 – Licensed abstractions within the River Fowey catchment ....................................... 11 Table 3 - Number of River Fowey salmonid deaths reported due to UDN. ............................ 20 Table 4 - Declared salmon rod and net catch summary. .......................................................... 22 Table 5 - Rod fishery participation. ......................................................................................... 24 Table 6 - Net fishery participation. .........................................................................................