richiekelly
Well-known member
It could possibly, but my imagination leads me to think I would hate to see the shape of it!
So would i..........
It could possibly, but my imagination leads me to think I would hate to see the shape of it!
Your assumptions,which is all they are Colin, seem to accept that all of those rivers are or were, in prime order,which of course ,they aren't or weren't!
Barbel wars 6 or is it 7
well barbel scrap 1054
can you show me evidence to the contary then; that barbel do not have a negative impact on any indigenous species of fish already present.
It bemuses me that so few can see the hypocrisy involved in thinking that stocking into rivers where fish aren't indigenous is somehow OK yet stocking into stillwaters is the work of Baelzebub. It's quite fascinating how people go about justifying this inconsistency of thinking. It's either wrong to stock in such a manner or it's not, there's no grey area as far as I'm concerned. I'm afraid that there's absolutely nothing that anyone can say that will convince me, I simply don't buy it. However, I'm not on a high horse over the stocking of either stillwaters or previously non-barbel rivers.
It bemuses me that so few can see the hypocrisy involved in thinking that stocking into rivers where fish aren't indigenous is somehow OK yet stocking into stillwaters is the work of Baelzebub. It's quite fascinating how people go about justifying this inconsistency of thinking. It's either wrong to stock in such a manner or it's not, there's no grey area as far as I'm concerned. I'm afraid that there's absolutely nothing that anyone can say that will convince me, I simply don't buy it. However, I'm not on a high horse over the stocking of either stillwaters or previously non-barbel rivers.
They are barely within range of conditions that the species can survive in and outside the range in which it can sustain populations naturally. QUOTE]
Chub
Question if I may?
Why do you think the EA and other groups continually re stock certain rivers with barbel if they are able to sustain populations naturally ?
I see it like this: Stillwaters are unsuitable for the species. They are barely within range of conditions that the species can survive in and outside the range in which it can sustain populations naturally. Barbel are poor swimmers with small swim bladders and high oxygen demands and might be physiologically stressed by life in a stillwater.
As for rivers, this is more of a river management debate rather than fish welfare. The two issues are separate in my head at least.
Yes i would like to see rivers support naturally balanced fish populations and i do think there is an issue if they are all being stocked with barbel, rainbow trout or whatever. In the case of the Severn and Ribble Barbel though, which are suitable, i dont see an issue. I have long given up hoping for lakes with naturally balanced fish populations as these may be privately owned or created solely to provide recreational fisheries - that would be like dictating what people do with their garden ponds.
Chub
Question if I may?
Why do you think the EA and other groups continually re stock certain rivers with barbel if they are able to sustain populations naturally ?
I've seen your arguments before and while I can see the thinking I just don't accept it. Stillwaters being barely suitable for barbel is highly debatable. They can't breed in stillwater is trotted out as a fact. What about the stillwaters where there's some (undoubtedly highly debatable) evidence to the contrary? Why if stillwaters are so unsuitable are people remotely concerned that a future "record" barbel will come from one? Surely if they are so unsuitable then there's nothing to be worried about? If stillwaters are so unsuitable then why are the commercials continuing to stock barbel? You'd think that them going belly up every five minutes would put them off somewhat. What about the fact that the barbel commercial stillwaters are stocking are farmed fish, farmed in still, albeit aerated, water?
If fish not successfully breeding was a bar to future stocking why is the EA restocking barbel into rivers where they aren't indigenous and they don't self sustain? The sad fact is that there seem to be fewer and fewer waters, still or flowing, that do actually self sustain these days.
I don't dispute that the likes of the Ribble and Severn have proven to be eminently suitable for barbel and are definitely more so than any stillwater. However, even if it was a geological accident, that's not a valid argument for interfering with what has occurred naturally. It wasn't a man made pollution incident that lead to there being no barbel in such rivers. It isn't a re-introduction. Evolution and the distribution of a multitude of species is full of geographical accidents. I fail to see how it is more correct to interfere with such accidents.
You can't complain about it being unnatural to stock barbel into stillwaters while turning a blind eye to equally unnatural stockings in rivers such as the Ribble.
At the end of the day the only reason to stock barbel in any river is if they have been resident for many years and diminished through pollution or some other man made failure of the riverine environment.
Most if not all of the stockings in rivers where they weren't before are probably in excess of 40 years ago. so why some are still making a point of this puzzles me.
What you have to remember is that the original out cry related to barbel being "stolen" from rivers and stocked into fisheries!
"But as is evident on the middle reaches of the Severn; barbel certainly rule the roost. Which to me is wrong!"
Love it!.....Colin whats your favourite barbel river at the moment
Can't be arsed to dig to deeply Colin, the fact is that individual rivers such as the Wye in their entirety still have good stocks of all fish, so to tar an entire river with the same brush is not got anything to do with science,it's here say much like any excuse an angler may use for not catching fish!
Still not sure about your definition of fact, not seen them anywhere.
Certainly not Colin, but they are truly alien species to the English rivers.
What you have to remember is that the original out cry related to barbel being "stolen" from rivers and stocked into fisheries!
Whoa there..................how do you explain a Lyre Bird's tail as a survival trait? It's the survival of the gene, not the individual.
Or a Bower Bird's bower?
Male Birds of Paradise?
Or any of a host of other amplified male adornments brought on through female sexual preference through evolution?
How do these traits enable survival of the individual animal? It's the genes.
If a higher dorsal fin enables male barbel to gain greater access to females at spawning, those genes will pass on and become progressively amplified, much as females can show active preference for particular traits that have no positive correlation to the animals general survival prospects.
A higher dorsal fin might enable greater manoeuvrability and then get selected purely on the strength of the act of spawning, not survival. As any number of species show, the adornment (the gene for it) can eventually outweigh it's physical usefulness.
Why else would male Narwhal have those "unicorn"-like horns? They have no practical survival function.
I thought you'd read The Blind Watchmaker et al?