Everard / Knight Britain’s Game Fishes

Celebration and Conservation of Salmonids
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-907807-36-7
Verlag: Pelagic Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 240 Seiten

Reihe: Pelagic Monographs

Game fishes, particularly those of the salmon family, are critical indicators of the health of those ecosystems upon which we now know we are dependent. As the authors of this important environmental book argue, “Our game fishes [then] serve as more than merely an indicator of healthy waters.  Instead, they can be regarded as iconic of the ecosystems in which they occur.” Moreover, “the quality requirements of different types of fish population have formed the backbone of a great deal of water management in the UK, Europe and the USA over several decades.”

With sections on how and why Britain’s game fishes are under pressure from changes in land use, agriculture, housing needs, etc. – and their concomitant pollution effects – this book assesses how our knowledge of these game fishes reflect the changing values we place on our surrounding wildlife.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Everard, Mark

Knight, Paul

Fachgebiete

• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Ökologie
• Geowissenschaften Geologie Limnologie (Süßwasser)
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Tierkunde / Zoologie Wirbeltiere (Vertebrata) Fische (Ichthyologie)
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Tierkunde / Zoologie Tierökologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Sport | Tourismus | Freizeit Sport Fischerei, Jagd, Schießsport

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Authors’ biographies

Preface

Part 1 The native game fishes of the British Isles

1 A natural history of Britain’s game fishes

2 The Atlantic salmon and its amazing life-cycle

3 Brown trout or sea trout

4 The Arctic charr

5 The grayling

6 The whitefishes

7 Rainbow trout: the familiar alien

8 Realising the value of the British game fishes

Part 2 British game fishes under pressure

9 The making and breaking of the modern world

10 A brief unnatural history of the British game fishes

11 Net results

12 Muddying the waters

13 Down on the farm

14 Salmonids under pressure

Part 3 Game fishes for the future

15 Sea change

16 Changing rules

17 Changing values

18 We the people

19 Game fishes for tomorrow

Bibliography

Index

Leseproben

Our world is a rich and marvellous place, home to a bewildering diversity of organisms each elegantly adapted over evolutionary timescales to the environment within which it occurs. All are intimately integrated with the geology, soils and topography, flows of water, chemicals and energy, and the host of other organisms comprising the ecosystems of which they are inter- dependent elements.

However, much of nature remains unknown to us. The endless cycles of substances and energy upon which all living things depend, including all aspects of our own needs – from basic life support to economic activities and aspirations to live fulfilled lives – are reliant upon the ceaseless activities of bacteria and other micro-organisms to a far deeper extent than we are often comfortable to acknow- ledge. We may be familiar with the actual or digital sight of blue whales, roe deer, polar bears, common toads and peregrine falcons. We may, indeed, feel motivated to support charities dedicated to their conservation. This has real value for those conspicuous and charismatic species, and also for the wider, largely invisible ecosystems essential to support them. But let us be under no illusion that what we can see, particularly wildlife we find ‘cute’ and inspiring, is in reality the tip of the proverbial iceberg of biodiversity upon which all life depends absolutely. Nevertheless, charismatic and economically important organisms have a key role as indicators of the integrity and vitality of the ecosystems that support them, and as a flagship around which public support may be mustered.

Game fishes, particularly members of the salmon family, clearly fall into this category of iconic, charismatic and economically important organisms. They have direct and significant value to anglers and associated tackle and tourism trades, to commercial fishermen and local economies, and may also support traditional livelihoods and regional character. However, their very presence also assures us of a diversity of less direct benefits. For example, thriving populations of salmon, trout and other native fishes send measurable but also subliminal signals to the wider world that the rivers, lakes and seas they inhabit are in a healthy ecological state, as well as being fit to support the diversity of human needs for water and productive, fertile riparian soils. It is not without good reason that the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) elected to simplify public communication of its often baffling array of water quality standards to the more intuitive strap- line of ‘drinkable, swimmable, fishable’ (sometimes augmented with ‘boatable’) to reflect how people intuitively evaluate freshwater bodies. A river fit for its native complement of game fishes, members of the salmon family, as well as other representative species is a river fit for people, able to support our health and other diverse needs into the future.

In this book, we will explore the importance of fishes of the salmon family for the wellbeing of society. There is a largely UK focus to this, but the principles apply wherever in the world game fishes fin through life-giving waters, including all of their life stages whether in fresh or marine environments.

Above all, this book is dedicated to the realisation of rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters fit for the future, serving the wellbeing of all species: fishes, humans and all water-dependent life.

Game for the future; for all; forever.

Dr Mark Everard and Paul Knight

Über Autor(innen)

Knight, Paul
Paul Knight has been involved with fish for most of his working life, including catching them as a commercial fisherman and angler, growing them as a trout farmer and now trying to conserve them as Chief Executive of the fisheries environmental charity, the Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA). He is a Council member and Fellow of the Institute of Fisheries Management (IFM), and spends his time attempting to influence government departments and agencies to follow policies that will protect the aquatic environment and all its dependent species. He writes for various fisheries-related and environmental magazines, and has successfully published a book of angling tales, Amazing Fishing Stories. He lives with his wife, Angela, and son, Archie, in Wiltshire.

Everard, Mark
Dr Mark Everard has a lifelong obsession with fish, water and the aquatic environment. Author of numerous books, magazine and scientific publications, many of them addressing fish and fishing, Mark is also a regular contributor to TV and radio. He is an adviser to government in the UK, India and South Africa on the sustainable use and management of water and other ecosystems, having also advised and conducted research right across the world. Mark is science adviser to the Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA) as well as vice-president of the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES), fellow of the Linnean Society, founding director of the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART), and a life member and former council member of both the Freshwater Biological Association (FBA) and the Angling Trust. Mark finds time to fish whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself, but most particularly in rivers accessible from his home in North Wiltshire where he lives with his partner Jackie, daughter Daisy and many tanks of fish.

Dr Mark Everard has a lifelong obsession with fish, water and the aquatic environment. Author of numerous books, magazine and scientific publications, many of them addressing fish and fishing, Mark is also a regular contributor to TV and radio. He is an adviser to government in the UK, India and South Africa on the sustainable use and management of water and other ecosystems, having also advised and conducted research right across the world. Mark is science adviser to the Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA) as well as vice-president of the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES), fellow of the Linnean Society, founding director of the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART), and a life member and former council member of both the Freshwater Biological Association (FBA) and the Angling Trust. Mark finds time to fish whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself, but most particularly in rivers accessible from his home in North Wiltshire where he lives with his partner Jackie, daughter Daisy and many tanks of fish.

Paul Knight has been involved with fish for most of his working life, including catching them as a commercial fisherman and angler, growing them as a trout farmer and now trying to conserve them as Chief Executive of the fisheries environmental charity, the Salmon & Trout Association (S&TA). He is a Council member and Fellow of the Institute of Fisheries Management (IFM), and spends his time attempting to influence government departments and agencies to follow policies that will protect the aquatic environment and all its dependent species. He writes for various fisheries-related and environmental magazines, and has successfully published a book of angling tales, Amazing Fishing Stories. He lives with his wife, Angela, and son, Archie, in Wiltshire.