Freshwater ecosystems are heavily stressed by multiple pressures – physical barriers, chemical and organic pollution. Recently also increasing predation pressure is strongly affecting the survival chances of many EU river fish species. ProtectFish focus its activities on the cormorant-grayling interaction, by assessing the impact of cormorants predation on the poor status of EU-protected river fish species.
The project’s main objectives are to:
1. Evaluate the current conservation status, monitoring, reporting and protective measures of EU-listed river-fish species.
2. Update and expand the scientific knowledge of cormorant populations in the EU and assess effective, balanced, and feasible methods for their management.
3. Using current and new data on the status of fish and cormorant populations and their interactions, generate knowledge-based recommendations for balanced, integrative and adaptive management of river biodiversity.
The project’s final output will be management recommendations on how to improve Europe’s rivers’ declining biodiversity. These recommendations will be resulting from the collection of EU-wide data, extensive field-experiments carried out with the help of hundreds of volunteers and discussions with local stakeholders on the basis of the preliminary results achieved. An External Advisory Board composed by key experts and stakeholders will be closely following the project’s progress.
During the first 18 months, the project has started up, infrastructure has been established and several long-term field experiments have been initiated. Most of the project activities have been started as planned, but obstacles have been encountered and are being addressed, including extreme weather events, lack of local collaboration and permissions (to regulate) as well as limitations in the effort of volunteers to patrol river stretches every day .
The ProtectFish network of stakeholders, advisory bodies and scientists have interacted in workshops and meetings as described under WP - 5. The literature review (D 4.1) revealed areas with substantial existing knowledge as well as areas of high importance to stakeholders which have limited published knowledge in the scientific literature. It is generally striking how few published studies there are of cormorant predation and the impact on fish populations, when considering the high level of conflict, the issue has raised locally and nationally in EU-member states and at the EU level.
