Fishery Overview

Funded through Yorkshire Water’s Catchment Resilience fund, Matt Duffy (our Fishery Habitat Officer) works specifically on projects which allow DCRT to take more action to improve fish populations. Projects such as delivering fish passage over man-made barriers to allow fish to move more freely within the catchment and improving in-channel and riparian habitats to help fish breed throughout the catchment.

Gathering fish population data via monitoring is also a highly important part of our fishery habitat work. It allows DCRT and partners to understand what strategies are needed to help fish populations, and whether interventions are working effectively. For example, installing a fish counter at fish passes will indicate whether migratory fish are able to use the interventions and how many are coming into the catchment on their return from sea.

While we have a fairly good idea of what interventions benefit fish populations, better knowledge of the status of the fish populations and the pressures impacting on them is invaluable in developing effective strategies and determining how our finite resources can be used to have the greatest positive impact.

We have a strong belief in community engagement and host various volunteer days, events and guided walks for the public to get involved with.

Take a look at our fishery pages to learn more about this aspect of our work.