Meeting The Galloway Fisheries Trust

From Sparling Bridge on the River Cree

Tucked away in Newton Stewart is a wonderful little project working away to help the fish populate, their habitat and their supporting environment, and they are the The Galloway Fisheries Trust. Now they don't just focus on Newton Stewart, their area covers further a field from the Fleet to Stranraer.

Their star fish, especially at this time of year is the sparling. The new bridge is names after them because the sparling only spawn in three rivers, and the Cree is one of those three so it's very exciting because it's such a rare and special thing. And their numbers are sadly in decline, partly due to habitat and partly due to past generations over fishing them.

Sparling Bridge

Now when I went in there I thought the sparling story would be pretty much like the salmon story. Fish from the sea swim back up stream, leaping over obstacles to  return to their spawning grounds. But it's not quite the same story.

Sparling are a weedier fish than salmon and are as good at swimming, but they do need to return to their spawning grounds because they need to lay their eggs in fresh water and not salt water. Furthermore the eggs need to be laid into fast flowing water so that the sticky mass of eggs is broken up into small units of eggs. So what the sparling do is to ride the last high tide in up river - in short they surf to their spawning grounds! How cool is that? Then, once there, they lay their sticky eggs. When the fish are milked the eggs are so sticky that they stay in one huge mass which isn't good for the eggs because if one goes bad, they all go bad. So to ensure that the eggs break free from the main clump the eggs are spawned in fast moving water, but not only that, incredibly each egg comes with its own little built in parachute that catches the flowing water and pulls it apart from the rest, so that the egg can adhere themselves to a rock or some vegetation where the fast flowing water with oxygenate them. Evolution has come a long way to problem solve all these issues that this little fish has to overcome, it's quite amazing.

Sparling Fish

Lots of scientific measurements have been taken and they are expecting the Sparling to arrive this weekend, in the dead of night - around 2am. I'm hoping to go along and see them for myself. Members of the public are also welcome to come along and see the spectacle, you can keep up to date with what's happening by following their fisheries Facebook page here...

Other than fish, the The Galloway Fisheries Trust is involved with a lot of conservation work, peatland restoration, tree planting and restoring habitats. They are doing lots of great work and advising on flood defences so that we can work together with the nature that is around us.

We also talked about the value a meadow might bring to the river side. The Galloway Fisheries Trust agreed that a meadow would be a great way of bringing in wildlife and food for the fish whilst also helping soil erosion and silt build up. Hey, and we could all enjoy it too!