AHEAD of World Fish Migration Day, a campaign has been launched to help wild Atlantic salmon and other fish species migrate to and from their spawning grounds in the River Eden.

#BreakThroughCorbyWeir has been initiated by local anglers from the Yorkshire Fly Fisher’s Club, the Carlisle Angling Association and Fish Legal.

The campaign’s objective is to ease fish migration at Corby Weir near Wetheral, which is a major obstacle for them in the highly-protected river.

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Corby Weir was built by the Environment Agency in 1996 and completed eighteen months before the River Eden was designated as a Special Area of Conservation.

The campaigners say it has 'very limited use' except as an Agency gauging station.

They added that such artificial barriers are a 'primary reason' why freshwater ecosystems are the most threatened environment globally - and that it became clear almost immediately after the weir’s construction that adult salmon returning to the Eden to spawn were struggling to ascend it.

 

 

Shoals of juvenile salmon (smolts) migrating out of rivers to sea can also be delayed by weirs and become highly vulnerable to predation.

Tagging studies on the nearby rivers Ettrick and Derwent have shown a loss of up to 40 per cent of smolt runs – effectively 40 per cent of the river’s whole salmon population – at similar major weirs.

Bob Bradney of Yorkshire Fly Fishers' Club said: “For over 10 years our members have been asking the Environment Agency to do something about a weir that they own and which has been damaging a river we love.

"The inaction cannot continue. We and the river need them to do something, whether that is to modify or preferably, remove the weir entirely."

Penelope Gane, head of practice at Fish Legal, added: “The time for talking has passed. The Environment Agency now need to deal with this problem and give salmon on the River Eden a fighting chance.”

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