Re-establishment of Salmon in River Thames

[RobSutton]

There was an interesting piece in the Independent about the acceptance that attempts to re-establish salmon populations in the Thames have failed and that the release of fry into the Thames will stop.

Particularly poignant was the last paragraph in the article:

I'm sad too, but I don't blame them for stopping. The episode teaches us something profound: when we foul up the natural world, there are sometimes limits to what we can do to repair it.

[yorkieuk]

Its such a shame to see it happen. I helped stock a load of parr into the river a couple of years back whilst doing my degree. It seemed fruitless then as, they had only one return at the time, and clearly nothing has changed. I supposse the difficulity is that its not 100% known how salmon manage to remember which river to return to and at what part of there life cycle they take note of where they need to be going back to. If its from the egg and first hatch then taking eggs from places such as ireland which is where we got the eggs from and hatching them out in a hacthery in winchester and then releasing them as parr into the lower strechtes of the thames, they may not be able to remember to have to travel back to the thames.

Hopefully things will improve when more is known about salmon.