Salmon leap back after stream bends restored

An endangered breed of salmon is making a recovery after a stream in the Lake District was rewiggled.

Swindale Beck was straightened in the 1800s to increase land for farming, but the quicker-moving water scoured away the gravel banks needed by Atlantic salmon to lay their eggs.

A decade after the restoration project between the RSPB and United Utilities, an Environment Agency survey found fry - newly hatched salmon - at three locations showed numbers had more than doubled in the past two years.

A spokesman described the results as "encouraging" and showed the habitat was now providing environment to boost numbers of one of the UK's most threatened fish species.

As well as the restoration of a 1km (0.6 mile) section of river to a more natural wiggly course, further work downstream allowed other sections to reconnect with their floodplain, reducing flood risk and also create a wider range of places for wildlife to thrive.

Along with salmon, the survey found brown trout, lamprey and eels.

And the restored wetland habitat had become home to a host of plants and wildlife including snipe, kingfishers and goosander.

Fisheries technical specialist Philip Ramsden, from the Environment Agency in Cumbria, said: "In this year's surveys, we found significantly more salmon fry across the three sites we sample on one section of Swindale Beck, along with a good sprinkling of parr [juvenile salmon].

"This indicates that young salmon are now not simply moving into this habitat from upstream or downstream, but have come from redds [salmon nests] that adult salmon have been able to create in this section, as it is now providing the gravels and other conditions that they need."

Ramsden said it was "really encouraging" to see.

"I'm sure that this is the start of a real acceleration of establishment as a stronghold of spawning and juvenile habitat for these fish," he said.

"As expected, it's taken a few years, but results this year are really pleasing to see."

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