Those who are familiar with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, will know that on a warm summers day Alice falls asleep and drifts into a dream about Wonderland. Well on my walk yesterday to cover the River Nanny development at Drumaskin, I felt like I was walking through Wonderland. This stunning 700 metre river enhancement by the Inland Fisheries Ireland team, was a wonderful example of what can be achieved when people who care about what they are doing, apply themselves to nursery stream enhancement work.
We are so lucky to have this team of IFI staff here in the West of Ireland and it was clear as I walked the River Nanny, that a lot of care and attention to detail has been put into this development. It could be seen that every effort was made to keep disturbance to a minimum and that habitat which was perfectly fine, was not disturbed by the enhancement work. The principal that you do not change that which is working, was applied.
The above is an example of how with minimum of disturbance, a constriction point was created. This natural looking stone flam was just eased out from the margin with the bucket of the machine. It looks natural and so much more aestherically pleasing to the eye. Working with nature to create a positive result.
Throughout this development, we witness improvements where materials were introduced with the minimum of disturbance to create potential habitat for the procreation of wild trout and salmon. If I had to choose one site as an example of what we, Cairde an Chláir are attempting to achieve with stream enhancements, it would the River Nanny development at Drumaskin. This 700 metre enhancement exudes all the positive attributes that one could wish for in a nursery stream enhancement, and it has been achieved by working with nature.
What the IFI team have achieved with this development will benefit the wild trout population of the River Nanny, Clare River and the Corrib catchment. It is an enhancement to be proud of and Cairde an Chláir are delighted to be associated with nursery stream developments such as this, where a manual operation is implemented to use nature to help our wild population of trout and salmon recover.
The emphasis with all these developments is to improve wild fish production, materials are introduced and existing habitat is sometimes moved around to create better potential for spawning success and juvenile survival. This enhancement should achieve that objective and it has been developed with a sympathetic awareness of nature, of wildlife and flora. This 700 metre stream enhancement is a credit to a young IFI team, a team which will hopefully move forward and continue to make a positive contributions toward improving the wild fishing resource of the Clare River and the Corrib catchment.
