Climate change and leaping salmon
An observer of fish wonders
During a recent visit to the Hermitage, near Dunkeld, I was privileged to watch large numbers of salmon attempting to leap up a powerful waterfall. Needless to say, after the unseasonal volume of rain the United Kingdom has received recently, the river was in spate.
Some salmon leapt skillfully and placed themselves temporarily into in a higher pool before being rapidly washed out by the voluminous current. As far as I could tell, no salmon got to the top of the waterfall, and the number that leapt head first into a rock was stunning (that has to hurt!).
Is the elevated river a consequence of climate change? If high rainfall is more prevalent, will the salmon ever spawn again? Or is this simply the knee-jerk reaction of a well meaning but ignorant observer?
August 29th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Potentially Spurious Press Release
Climate change is the largest threat to the UKs wildlife. Failure to reduce carbon emissions will have unimaginable impacts upon our bird populations. Already many species are shifting their ranges, or changing behaviour. In addition to birds breeding earlier, many species are changing their feeding habits. For example, the recent flooding, a direct consequence of climate change, has meant the normal food of many of these species, such as lush vegetation just below the water surface, is now well beyond the reach of their normal feeding patterns. Instead, ducks that rely on this food are now diving from a good 1.5 m above the water surface in the style of the gannet in order to be able to reach the food they depend on - a desperate measures to avoid starvation considering the bird is not morphologically or physiologically designed for this behaviour.