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During a brief conversation with an angler at Wolfhampcote on Sunday, I commented that he was the first angler I had seen in four days. He informed me that there are virtually no fish in that sectuion of the G.U. because a "Carnivorous Creature was in the water which had eaten all the fish. So what is it and how did it get there?

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I wonder if it might be a visitor from the Lancaster Canal. We were chatting to a regular fisherman by the old dry dock in the middle of town, and he said we should have been there earlier as he'd caught "a monster" nearby.

 

If I remember correctly, most monsters are carnivorous, so I wonder if it's gone on it's holidays or something?

 

Andy

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or Mink

 

I haven't seen Mink taking fish but it seems likely. We have witnessed efforts to control Zander in this area - the team put a high voltage charge through the water that stuns all the fish - which then float so that the unwanted specimens can be removed - usually by the bucketful!

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Love the idea of a carnivorous creature stalking the depths "Lake Placid" style ..... mutant croc ? .. crazed piranahs ? Most fish are carnivorous when you think about it. the most common top of the UK freshwater food chain though are perch and pike but they're nothing new; introduction of zander might oust these top fish predators, but for the prey its just replacing one big-nasty-sharp-toothed fish with another. There are carnivorous birds on/in the water ... cormorants, herons, kingfishers, grebes. Mammals ? (... mink possibly, not otters yet AFIK) ? Perhaps more tellingly, there's also multilingual signs in places on the southern GU now asking that people do not remove fish from the water as people less familiar with UK coarse angling have been taking them for food.

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I haven't seen Mink taking fish but it seems likely. We have witnessed efforts to control Zander in this area - the team put a high voltage charge through the water that stuns all the fish - which then float so that the unwanted specimens can be removed - usually by the bucketful!

...and every year they take out the same sort of numbers, rather proving the pointlessness of the exercise.

 

Zander are here to stay so it might be best to let them settle down into a normal population, rather than just weed out the weak ones, which are more vulnerable to a gentle stunning.

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During a brief conversation with an angler at Wolfhampcote on Sunday, I commented that he was the first angler I had seen in four days. He informed me that there are virtually no fish in that sectuion of the G.U. because a "Carnivorous Creature was in the water which had eaten all the fish. So what is it and how did it get there?

 

Crayfish?

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  • 5 months later...

I may be missing the point here, but if zander are taking over from the current populations/species, what's the problem? If they eat all the perch/carp/tench, then those who wish to fish can fish for zander instead. Presumably the populations are self-regulating: if there isn't enough food for the zander, then the zander will die out, and the other species will eventually come back.

 

What I really don't understand is why species that have moved into the canal network some time in the last 200 years have any more right to be there than another species, whose only fault was to arrive later.

 

The canals are man-made, after all: nature has only taken over because it can!

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I may be missing the point here, but if zander are taking over from the current populations/species, what's the problem? If they eat all the perch/carp/tench, then those who wish to fish can fish for zander instead. Presumably the populations are self-regulating: if there isn't enough food for the zander, then the zander will die out, and the other species will eventually come back.

 

What I really don't understand is why species that have moved into the canal network some time in the last 200 years have any more right to be there than another species, whose only fault was to arrive later.

 

The canals are man-made, after all: nature has only taken over because it can!

 

I think the worry is that these more aggressive species are wiping out the gentler ones, (happens in humans too!) we have nearly lost the red squirrel to the greys and although I cant see the pretty fish, I do miss seeing the flash of the red squirrel in our forests...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7559266.stm lists the 12 bully boys and girls in the wild...

 

 

 

edited to add 'girls' to the bully list!

Edited by Chagall
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I think the worry is that these more aggressive species are wiping out the gentler ones, (happens in humans too!) we have nearly lost the red squirrel to the greys and although I cant see the pretty fish, I do miss seeing the flash of the red squirrel in our forests...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7559266.stm lists the 12 bully boys and girls in the wild...

 

 

 

edited to add 'girls' to the bully list!

 

They're behaving like animals!!

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