Top-quality fish bred to top up stocks in Calder

THOUSANDS of fish have been given a new home to help top up an improving Lancashire river.

The Environment Agency has bred 10,000 baby roach, which have been added to a 10-mile stretch of the River Calder and its tributaries from Whalley to Burnley.
The fish have been reared at the Environment Agency's Leyland fish farm, which has recently re-opened after a virus outbreak in some of its stocks in summer 2004. Improvements have been made to prevent any future outbreak and new screening tests have been developed to detect infection at an early stage in fish considered for breeding.
The fish farm, near Preston, will be used to rear 500,000 fish for restocking rivers across the North West during the next two years.
Mr Grant Talbot, fish farm manager, said: "These are some of the best quality fish that have been produced in many years and have grown really well.
"It's great to see the fish farm up and running and ready to help improving rivers, such as the Calder, get even better and provide pleasure for anglers in the area."
For more information about angling or to buy a rod licence, log on to www.environment-agency.gov.uk/fish

Great to see our licence money being used in this way

I think it is a huge mistake to stock fish into rivers when they were bred from stock that did not come from the same river.

andy can you tell us why?

The Roach population in a river evolves over time so that it is unique.

By stocking fish bred from brood stock from one river you reduce that diversity.

Diversity can lead to a population for example developing resistence to disease or parasites that are present in a river.

Stocking with fish that have not evolved resistence to the specific problems that face the roach population can place the whole roach population in the area at risk.