Cleaning out the Dam
Wednesday September 10, 2014 by Peter T
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Looking good as the pond is filling up with water this evening.
I will no doubt be the only one who thinks like this, but well done to the people concerned who made the decision to carry out this work, you have destroyed the habitat of the shoals of fish, if not killed them directly. (and YES there were fish present, numbers of them, might of been minature and not seen without the use of polarising sunglasses, but they WERE present) so well done to the parish council if they are responsible, well done indeed and a pat on the back to your goodselves, I hope you are proud of yourselves)
Alex, I do appreciate your concern but do not despair, the fish will soon be back recolonising the ponds. Because the pond is no longer used for the reason it was built, it clogs up very badly and if not cleaned out periodically it just becomes solid mud. Then, as well as not supporting any wildlife, it poses a very real flood danger to the village as the excess rain cannot get away. The pond has been cleared several times over the years and it quickly becomes full of new life. There are plenty of fish and wild life in the stream beds either side of the pond which will soon swim back.
I don’t know for sure, but I imagine the Parish Council will have taken plenty of advice from the relevant conservationists as they have done previously, when undertaking their village environmental responsibilities.
There was still wildlife in the pond last night as the kids were playing around that area.
From My own historical views of the sheep wash over the last 40 years. A well established yellow iris bed was in the far corner of the sheep wash where wild fowl lived and nested and help to control further encroachment of weed believed eaten by their dietary needs, but due to the sitting council of the time it was removed as well as the birds, I believe therefore todays problems are now occurring.
I agree with Patti that the aquatic wildlife will most likely quickly recolonise the pond areas. My guess is that the fish will actually gain from the increase in areas of deeper water. A pond and stream that are gradually silting up, would not be able to sustain many fish, but perhaps become a better habitat for other aquatic life. Ideally there should be shallower and deeper areas to encourage a divers range of creatures, but with such small areas of water there is little space to create such gradation in habitats.
Surely a good flow of the stream must be secured for lots of reasons. The main reason for the PPC’s decision to dredge will have been to improve the resilience to flooding of the areas. I can see a clear parallel between the discussions about dredging the bigger rivers ‘down south’ after the floods earlier this year and managing wildlife-rich wetlands! Not doing anything is usually not an option.