LOSSES OF TROUT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19915, 18 April 1939, Page 3

LOSSES OF TROUT

STREAMS DRYING- UP FISH ISOLATED IN POOLS

“The situation is serious; it means the loss o£ hundreds of pounds to us if we do not have rain soon,” said Mr. E. J. C. Wiflin, secretary of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society, in discussing the difficulties in trout conservation caused by the prolonged dry weather.

As streams dried up, iie said, the trout retreated to the larger pools which were left, and were trapped. There they were in danger of starving, the food supply sometimes not being enough for the number of fish that had resorted to the pool. Already there must have been losses of fish

and the magnitude of the loss must increase with the continued absence ol rain.

Mr. Wiflin said lie had never known the rivers to be so low. There was no water under the Tauhcrenikau bridge, and the society had received information from numerous places where there was danger of fish''being lost. A Jet lev had been received form a ranger that day stating that he had found thousands of yearling fry in the pools of a drying stream in the Carterton district.

The only thing that could be done to save such fish was to get volunteers to go. and net them and carry them to the main stream, but netting yearlings, or even large fish, in such pools was r.ot easy, lie himself had counted more than ISO fish in a poo! near Nireaha at Easter and there was so little water in the Makakahi, in the Wairarnpa, one of the best

stiearns in the Wellington district that no experienced angler wouh think about putting his rod togethei at it.

Mr. WifTin pointed out that dry weather at this season interfered with spawning, freshets in the rivers being necessary to encourage the fish to

move up to the spawning grounds ii the head waters in preparation foi spawning, which was due soon.