From the first two phases of DNA analysis (funded previously by the Wild Fisheries Fund) the project team have gathered substantial information on adult returns in the rod catch, particularly from 2018 to 2020. To date only a small number of smolts have been genotyped.
Bob Kindness has operated a smolt screw trap towards the lower part of the river for the last 18 years and since 2014 he has taken clips from a sample of smolts each year (first 20 smolts each day over a 10 day period giving a total of 200 per year).
For this phase of the project in 2025, the intention is to genotype the balance of the 2017 smolts (up to 140 in total) and the smolts sampled in 2018 and 2019 (200 for each year). Smolts from these years will have returned to the river between 2018 and 2021.
Genotyping these smolts will provide data on the proportion of the smolt run that were from the stocking programme. By comparing the smolt years with the years of returning adults we will get information on the relative survival of stocked fish during the freshwater and marine parts of their life-cycle. Different stocking approaches between the years (ova, fry or parr) will also be analysed to help identify potential future successful strategies for other threatened rivers.
