The ProtectFish project partners from Work Package 4 – led by Kurt Pinter of Universität für Bodenkultur Wien (BOKU) – executed end October some electro fishing research activities on the upper Drava river in Austria.
This project team aims to how the modification of cormorant predation pressure interacts with the conservation status of riverine fish populations.
With this objective, the Austrian ProtectFish partners marked all the fish measuring at least 12cm with Passive Integrated Transponders (PIT tags). The PIT tags will be searched at a later stage cormorant roosting tress along this river during their wintering to determine the predation pressure levels by cormorants on EU river fish populations.
The team will then also assess how cormorant predation pressure impacts the conservation status of riverine fish populations – with a special emphasis on grayling.
Reactions of cormorants to fish protection measures and how habitat quality and complexity supports the protection of fish measures will be analysed and studied.
Other noteworthy outcomes of this field study:
- Analysis of fish species distribution & biomass
- Collection of qualitative and quantitative parameters of the local fish population
- Deepening of knowledge on the selected river stretch and its endangered fish population to measure the effectiveness of different management measures on their recovery
Field experiments will be executed in Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Poland, covering diverse biogeographical regions and a wide range of river landscapes.
Important scientific note:
NB: Fish don’t get hurt by our expert’s electrofishing techniques. This is an inoffensive method when carried out by trained people to put them to sleep for measuring and tagging them.
