Genocide on river Tees

Having been signed off work for a few weeks for a broken collar bone I thought I'd take a walk down to the Tees barrage to see if I could spot any salmon trying (and most likely failing) to get up the fish pass. When I arrived the scene was nothing less than disturbing.

In the 2 hours that I sat by the river I must have seen at least 15 salmon being slaughtered by the 5 seals patrolling that area, and that was only on the strech directly in front of me. The 8 cormorants mopped up the smaller fish that had the same problem. Other people walking down the river said the same thing was happening all the way down to the estuary. 25 fish went through the pass that day, and I saw 15 getting eaten in 2 hours on an 1/8 mile stretch, when the same thing is happening on the 10-12 miles to the estuary. That must mean that literally hundreds and hundreds are being killed daily, while 25 make it up the pass.

I could see fish moving slowly along the margins trying to keep out the way until they the tide rose when they might have a better chance of making it up. Some of them had clearly been bitten, with some of them having seal mouth sized chunks missing while they limped along slowly, surely to be picked off before long.


Why its going to take the EA another 3-4 years (after already having 14) to figure out what you can tell within 5 minutes is beyond me. People who had no interest in fish found the mass extermination uneasy to watch, stopping initially to watch what they thought was nature taking its course, only to see fish after fish, some of them easily over 15lb, being eaten alive, while struggling to the last. I went down 3 days in a row and the same was happening every day. The fact that so many fish are still coming back each year is testament to how well the rivers tributaries serve as spawning grounds for the few lucky ones.

Something needs to be done.

Petitions have been signed, and letters have no doubt already been written but it looks like it'll take a lot more effort before the message gets through. We'll be writing some letters, to the EA, British Waterways (who operate the barrage) and to wildlife and angling publications. If you care yourself then do the same!