Mark Raine from the
Environment Agency's operational workforce
(pictured) helped West Sussex County Council
registrars Mandy Morrison and Anne Sayer
to attend a wedding in Upwaltham
Barn, Chichester during snow on Saturday
18 December 2010.
Following a call from
West Sussex County Council, the Environment
Agency took registrars to several weddings
in West Sussex in their all terrain vehicles,
ensuring they got there safely and on time.
Andy Strudwick from
the Environment Agency was on duty over
the weekend and organised the help. He said:
“Many of our staff have specialist training
to deal with adverse weather conditions.
They also have the vehicles and safety equipment
to cope with the snow and ice. Our priority
is to retain the ability to deal with any
emergencies but we are really pleased to
be able to offer local communities help
and assistance during extreme weather conditions
like these. A wedding day is such a special
day and one that everyone wants to go ahead
without a hitch. We were delighted to be
able to offer our help to ensure these weddings
went ahead in West Sussex over the weekend.”
+ More
Environment Agency takes
action to protect eels on the Isle of Wight
Environment Agency fisheries
specialists have recently contributed to
a river restoration project in a concerted
effort to halt the sharp decline of eels
at an Isle of Wight waterway.
As part of the River
Medina Restoration Project, a collaborative
initiative delivered through the Isle of
Wight Rivers Group and Newport Rivers Group,
Environment Agency teams have installed
a number of elver (juvenile eels) passes
on a series of concrete weirs on the river.
Once common in British
waters, the long-term future of the eel
is bleak as the numbers entering European
rivers has crashed by over 90 percent in
recent decades. The decline is thought to
be caused by a number of factors including
over fishing, habitat loss, pollution, climate
change and changes to oceanic currents.
Eels are unusual in
that they start life in the ocean then grow
in freshwater, before migrating back to
the sea to spawn. One major concern regarding
the survival of the European Eel is the
presence of artificial barriers such as
weirs, sluices and structures which prevent
young eel migrating into our rivers to live
out their adult life.
Figures indicate that
approximately 20,000 hectares of stillwater
habitat and 68,000 hectares of river habitat
in Europe are inaccessible to eels due to
manmade barriers, but the Environment Agency
is dealing with this obstacle by installing
eel friendly passes in waterways.
Data collected from
fish population surveys carried out on the
River Medina showed that very few eel were
found in the upper catchment confirming
the prediction that elvers were not able
to swim up to the upper reaches of the river.
The elver passes are
made using a four inch diameter flexible
land drainage pipe with a “bottle brush”
inserted through the entire length of the
pipe. The pipe has a small amount of water
passing through it which is gravity fed,
and this provides a flow to help the elvers
to find the entrance.
Dave Hunter of the Environment
Agency’s Solent and South Downs Fisheries,
Recreation and Biodiversity Team, said:
“Due to the efforts of our specialist teams
eel populations are being given a real chance
to make a much needed comeback in rivers
on the Island. This is great news, but more
work needs to be done.
“These fish passes are
relatively cheap and easy to install. Along
with the habitat improvement works planned
for the river, we hope that eel will be
able to thrive in the Medina catchment which
to date, they have been unable to do. This
project is in addition to further extensive
eel and elver migration projects across
West Sussex, Hampshire and Isle of Wight
area over many river catchments.”
Monitoring will be carried
out in the spring of 2011 to assess the
effectiveness of the new eel passes.
• Eels have a long-range
lifecycle. They spawn in the ocean and their
transparent larvae drift on ocean currents
until they reach the continental shelf.
As they approach the coast, they grow and
take on a darker colour. Now called elvers,
they enter estuaries and migrate upstream
to grown and mature in rivers, lakes, ponds
and wetlands as yellow eels. They can remain
in freshwater for over 20 (and up to 40)
years, before migrating downstream, taking
on a silver appearance, to the sea. The
mature adults are thought to migrate back
to the mid-Atlantic to spawn. Truly one
of nature’s great migrants.
• Eel are important
to the diet of several other rare and protected
species, such as otters and bittern.
• Eels are listed as
endangered by the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species.
