• Salmon returning to the River Avon but not as we know it

 

Greetings!   For many years the River Avon that flows through both Hampshire and Wiltshire, the longest chalkstream in the world, was the home to the largest land-based trout farm in England at Bickton, which is 12 miles south of Salisbury so between Fordingbridge and Ringwood. However, in March it closed which was certainly good news from an ecological standpoint but there are now plans to reopen with an application currently with Wiltshire Council to create in its place a salmon rearing farm.   As will be obvious to anyone who has recently surveyed a fish counter or restaurant menu that salmon is an increasing popular choice, with the Atlantic variety almost always farm reared and generally in sea cages. However, the Swiss company Swiss Lachs, under the name Cold Water Farms, is planning to grow on salmon at the Bickton farm from smolts reared at its Irish facility.     Swiss Lachs plant in Switzerland

 

I must admit I am undecided as to how to view this Swiss Lachs proposal. On the one hand, no fish farming is ideal. But on the other hand, all manners of undesirable other uses might be found for a redundant fish farm, plus it was a valued employer. And, if there is a growing demand for salmon should we say no clear in the knowledge that we will be simply shifting the problem, if it is indeed a problem, onto somewhere else. I say indeed because the Swiss Lachs closed system proposition is fairly compelling. To quote their web site on the Swiss plant:   “The recirculating aquaculture system technology is the most advanced and elaborated (sic) type of aquaculture. Our water is filtered sevenfold, we recycle all our waste in a local biogas plant. The fish is growing in melted snow entirely free from chemicals and antibiotics. The result is a fresh, healthy fish which is not only fresher, healthier and more sustainable, it also tastes better. Our circulation system is closed, there is no fish escape, no chemicals or antibiotics which damage other sea life. The technology of the closed water cycle is particularly resource-friendly and reduces the need for fresh water to below 2%.”   They go on to say that a 30g smolt will take 18 months to rear to the optimal harvest size of 3.5-4.0 kg grown in tanks with a continuous flow to swim in. I presume that the UK facility will be freshwater though I cannot see a specific mention in anything I have read to date.

 

 

The current application in with Wiltshire Council relates to a large structure that needs to go over the fish rearing ponds as the Swiss Lachs closed-loop system cannot operate in an open environment. As noted by the campaigning organisation WildFish, who are opposing the plans, the application gives few specifics on production tonnage or detailed assessments of drainage, water abstraction, or discharge. I did have a wry smile at comments in a piece in the trade publication Salmon Business on the WildFish objection saying they ‘routinely oppose aquaculture projects’ and that WildFish is ‘backed by renewable energy entrepreneur Dale Vince, who has extended his involvement from green energy into food and farming campaigns.’ as the two, separately or combined, made WildFish a child of the devil himself! 

 

As I say, I have an open mind at present. From the little I know about commercial fish farming land-based operations have much lower costs than their sea-based equivalents so if the Swiss Lachs model could in time replace the damaging salmon sea cages that might be a win.

 

 

Yet more kingfishers   Kingfishers seem to be rife around these parts just now. The other evening, around dusk, as we watched TV, we found ourselves equally watched by a kingfisher perched on the sill of the glazed wall that separates the mill wheel housing room from the house proper. His head was inclining this way and that as, I guess, he tried to make some sense of the myriad of colours emanating from what he would have regarded as an otherwise blank wall.   The mill wheel housing room is open to the elements in so far as the river runs through it with arched openings close to the water at either end. However, for our curious kingfisher getting in was easy; getting out, less so as an hour later he was still watching TV in between escape forays that ended in collision with, in turn, the glazed door and windows.     "Not another bloody Attenborough documentary ....."   For a while the solution seemed obvious – open the door to the outside and let him find his own way out. But for some reason this seemed to defeat him so we were in a quandary as entering the room to open the windows might alarm him to the extent of harming himself. So, my daughter, the smallest and slightest of us was volunteered to creep along the crawl boards and over the mill race hatch to open the windows. Strangely, the kingfisher seemed unconcerned by the intrusion observing, perched on a bucket on the mill wheel until he spotted the new opening and promptly departed in a flash of blue.       The definition of insanity   You have regularly voted A River Runs Through It the best fishing film of all time, so I was sad to read of the death of its director Robert Redford last week.   Redford was not just the director of the film, which gave a young Brad Pitt his Hollywood break, but he was the driving force behind making it happen. He had to deploy every ounce of his considerable charm to convince the book’s reclusive writer Norman Maclean, who had rebuffed numerous previous approaches, that the book should be made into a film.   Aside from his acting and film work Reford was well known for his environmentalist work but I had always assumed that was something that he came to later in life but not a bit of it. In 1976, when he was 40 years old, he was appointed chairman of the Provo Canyon Sewer District Committee to help residents of his local town in Utah secure state aid for a new sewage system, a position he sought to protect the Provo Canyon and River from pollution and development.     Redford on the set of A River Runs Through It

 

It was a shame we did not listen more to people like Redford back then. I was struck by this thought reading a piece in The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday charting the 82 per cent decline of the British peregrine falcon population since 1970. The article went to list the other birds in danger: turtle doves (99% decline), capercaillie, wood warblers, willow tits, tree sparrows, spotted flycatcher, redpoll, pied flycatcher and marsh tits are all on the same long list with a suggestion that the rate of decline is accelerating the smaller the populations become.   Why, you might ask, is this happening? Afterall, a flyover of the British landscape shows it not that much different to how it was 50 years ago. Yes, a small percentage of farmland has been used for housing but nothing that would move the bird population needle to the extent it has. Indeed, the amount of woodland has actually increased and our coastline, bar some erosion, is immutable.   The clue to the answer lies in where the bird population declines have happened most: upland bird species down 11%. Sea birds down 15%. Woodland birds down 32%. Farmland birds down 62%. I have to sadly conclude, as I was once a staunch defender of farming, that it is due to the agricultural methods of production. Insecticides, pesticides, animal and bird husbandry and cropping regimes are the culprits. It can be no coincidence that where farming happens least, the uplands are low intensity at worst, the problem is least.   Einstein never actually said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." but the truth of the quote still stands. If we want to save our native birds, we need to take a scythe to current farming practices.

 

Was this really Brad Pitt?!

 

 

Fishing dreams are made of this   If you have a yen for a house on the River Test, and upwards of £15m to spend, in that inimitable phrase by Arthur Daley in the TV show Minder, the world is your lobster as it seems two of Hampshire’s motor racing entrepreneurs have decided to up sticks.   Formula 1 World Champion Jody Scheckter's Laverstoke Park Estate, with 1.5 miles of the River Test has been up for sale since the spring, but just launched to the market is Jonathan’s Palmer’s Longparish House. This has a rather more modest half a mile of River Test, but still a hefty £16.75m price tag with 122 acres, a large house, stables, cottages and all the toys. Palmer, who was a F1 driver for six years without scaling the heights of Scheckter, has, since retirement in 1991, been heavily involved in many successful motoring racing ventures.   Longparish House is available through Savills and Laverstoke Park jointly between Savills and Knight Frank.     Longparish House & River Test

 

 

Quiz   The usual random collection of questions this week inspired by the date and topics today.   1)     On this day in 1924 Malcolm Campbell sets the world auto speed record. What speed did he achieve? A) 146.16 mph  B) 186.16 mph   C) 226.16 mph   2)     Did Robert Redford ever win an Oscar?   3)     It was the equinox this week. How many times does it occur each year?    Answers are at the bottom of this Newsletter.

 

Have a good Ryder Cup weekend.  Best wishes,

 

 

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

 

 

1)     146.16 mph 2)     Yes, one. 1980 Academy Award for Best Director for the film Ordinary People. 3)     Twice each year when the sun crosses the celestial equator, when day and night are of approximately equal length around 22 September and 20 March.