Another two weeks have passed and that is my first month at South Cumbria Rivers Trust completed already! How time flies! Following a great Easter weekend spent exploring the Lake District it was back to work on Tuesday. First item on the agenda was a site visit with Mike Sturt to assess an on-line Mill pond near Cartmel that has become excessively silted. The pond is currently a fishery and was created many years ago by damming the Burn’s Beck/Hill Mill…
Hi everyone, I’m Matt, the new project officer at South Cumbria Rivers Trust (SCRT). As a new starter I thought I would start this blog to take you through some of the work I get involved in, and what is involved in the day to day role of a project officer here at SCRT. Apologies this blog hasn’t been started sooner, as I started 2 weeks ago but I have been kept busy by the work and I have done…
Dr Mike Sturt and Dr Charlotte Hall took part in a really useful workshop on Redox and dissolved oxygen measurements in interstitial river bed sites and equipment maintenance from Juergen Geist & Kathi Stoeckl, hosted by the Freshwater Biological Association, Windermere. This information and great practical experience will be applied to our monitoring work and will provide valuable data and insight into the habitats preferred by the fresh water mussel populations.
SCRT, Environment Agency, Natural England and EU LIFE IP ‘Natural Course’ worked together on the Jumb Quarry project as part of the Cumbrian River Restoration Strategy. The project removed 9000 tonnes of mine spoil from the east Kentmere valley just south of the reservoir. The spoil heaps were the result of slate mining which ceased in the mid 1960’s. They continued to be a problem providing high sediment loads resulting in a concentration of sediment deposition in the river channel…
Mike has been busy scrubbing the fish counter at Backbarrow! We’re keeping it clean so we can record video footage of fish swimming over the white boards. We’re using this footage to validate the readings from the fish counter to work out how many salmon, sea-trout and eels are migrating up and down the River Leven. Keep an eye out for the footage in the coming weeks…
With the effects and aftermath of Storm Desmond still very much in the minds of the people of Cumbria, South Cumbria Rivers Trust announces a new community supported project that will have benefits for both flooding and wildlife on the River Kent. Preparations are now underway for the removal of a section of man-made river embankment on the River Kent in Staveley. At this village centre site, the river will once again be connected to its floodplain which, at…
Help to restore Windermere’s lost legacy Windermere’s reedbeds have declined by more than 95% over the past 150 years. Reedbeds are not only important foraging and refuge habitats for trout, salmon and eels, but they also reduce lake shore erosion and trap nutrient rich sediments. Reedbeds support a huge range of wildlife and are full of activity, yet they still give us a sense of tranquillity and calm when we watch them swaying gently in the breeze. Sponsoring a reedbed…
SCRT have launched the new project to conserve the critically endangered Freshwater Pearl Mussel across the South Cumbria area. Although this project focusses upon Mussels, the wider ecological and social benefits are widespread. This includes benefits to other species river such as salmon, trout and invertebrates as well as our native crayfish. Additionally environmental factors such as bathing water quality, flood alleviation, erosion mitigation and algal bloom prevention are also significantly improved. In some cases mussel populations have declined by…
Sea Lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) were a common sight in UK rivers but have suffered dramatic declines in the last few decades and are now an endangered species. These ancient snake-like creatures resemble an eel but unlike most fish, they lack scales, jaws and gill covers and have a cartilaginous skeleton. Their sucker-like mouths, pointy teeth and rasping tongue are by far their most unusual features. Their creepy appearance is matched by their feeding strategy: they use their mouth to…