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INLAND FISHERIES IRELAND is investigating after over 1,200 dead fish were found on a spawning tributary to one of our main salmon fishing rivers.
The fish kill is on the Owentaraglin River, a tributary of the Munster Blackwater River, in north-west Cork.
Fisheries officers discovered more than 1,200 fish mortalities over a 2km stretch of the river near the village of Kiskeam.
Raw slurry
Inland Fisheries Ireland says it is following a definite line of inquiry.
They say the cause of the fish kill is believed to be a large discharge of raw slurry into the waterway, which they describe as an important spawning river.
Fish species affected on the river include salmon, brown trout, eel and stickleback.
Significant numbers of gravid hen salmon were among the mortalities.
Significant damage
Aside from the large number of fish killed, there was significant damage to the spawning beds and wider aquatic habitat, which will have implications for the fish population in the area into the future, Inland Fisheries Ireland warned.
Spokesman Sean Long said:
It will take years for River Owentaraglin to recover to its former condition as a result of this pollution.
Inland Fisheries Ireland is reminding farmers of the importance of complying with EU Regulations on the storage or movement of slurry.
Recreational angling contributes €836 million to the Irish economy annually and supports upwards of 11,000 jobs, often in rural and peripheral communities.
Since 2010, Inland Fisheries Ireland has been responsible for the conservation, protection, management, marketing, development and improvement of our inland fisheries and sea angling resources.
Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) is asking the public to call its 24-hour confidential hotline to report suspected discharges into rivers: 1890 34 74 24 or 1890 FISH 24.
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This is absolutely disgraceful. Disgusting behaviour for whoever dumped the poison or let this happen. Someone needs to go to jail for a long time for this.
I wonder has anyone ever been jailed for this offence. I can’t imagine.
@Diarmuid O’Connor: I have never heard of such a thing in 43 years of having an interest, personal and professional, in the waterways and bodies of this State (started fishing at age 7. Worked in the sector awhile also).
@Eoin Fitzpatrick: Disgusting – we heard from the EPA recently how polluted our waterways are – they need to doggedly pursue and prosecute these people. Farming in Ireland is NOT clean and green – it is grossly polluting and yet our government wants to invest more in it so we can export these polluting products to China. Stop it.
@Eoin Fitzpatrick: as I said the other day animal agriculture causes the most damage.
Farmers, custodians of the countryside eh?
@Get Lost Eircodes: I wonder was it animal slurry? Farmers slurry tanks shouldn’t be even close to full at this time of year. There is a ban on spreading slurry from october to jan, so it shouldn’t have been run off either.
@Do the Bort man: From humans it is called sewage…
@Get Lost Eircodes: And reports can be inaccurate.
Ah come on it is in the middle of the sticks, it was a fooking farmer stop trying to muddy the waters, if you pardon the expression…
It’s just horrendous. It will take years for that river to go back to normal……if it ever does. I hope they catch whoever did this.
@Lilly Ella: damn near impossible if it was a mobile slurry sprayer/tank and the dirty filthy perp got clean away. If a fixed installation is leaking, or a pipe deliberately led from it into the river say (as I’ve often seen) the manganese precipitates may leave a bread-crumb trail..but you’d have to have the political will to actually prosecute and properly penalise the perps. And with FG in the ascendant, that will never happen. Speaking as one who knows just how FG supported and protected the pig farmers who destroyed Sheelin in the Seventies and Eighties.
Came across a fish kill on 2nd level Barrow Branch of the Grand nearly 20 years ago while hiking. Helped locals rescue hundreds of gasping fish with pots, pans, bins and anything that could hold water. Found the source of the pollution which was a farmer pressure washing a sileage pit. I brought fisheries inspectors to the scene. They couldn’t give a fook, said no evidence even though the pump taking water from Milltown feeder was still in situ and there was a trail of effluent leading from the pit to a ditch flowing into 2nd level.
I only hope the farmer, if found guilty, will be charged for the damage caused.
ha ha ha ha ha yer a hoot
Healy rae would say its an act of god
@Mr Jenkins: the same boys nor their father before them wouldn’t be behind the door when it came to calling for compensation for damage done their constituents by all other ”acts of God” from too much rain to too little rain to blowfly to foot and mouth to the kittle being scared by apparitions on the gable wall of the Church….sorry meant the cattle. Kittle’s just how they’d say it in that annoying gombeen whine.
This has been happening in this State since God was a boy. There’s no excuse for it, and there’s no excuse for not having laws that will put the guilty party out of biz. This was some rube washing out his slurry sprayer, simple as. Or not maintaining his slurry tank properly. In the former case, deliberately most like as the cost of otherwise doing it properly would be inconvenient.
I’m no expert but reckon it’s probably a slurry spillage, wonder if the perpetrator will escape conviction?
No wondering about it. The answer’s “Of course they will” when the Friends (of the) Gobshiite are in power.
Farmers are not custodians of the countryside..its a business….rules on spreading slurry doesnt apply to these buckos if it gets in the way of the business..came across a farmer recently filling his spreader from a stream near by..told him that you arent allowed to do that in case there are pesticides still in his tank and it leaks out into the stream….he told me to feck off..they live by their own rules…how often do you see young fellas who arent old enough to drive a car driving tractors on our roads or contractors on the phone while driving heavy tractors on our roads..any attempts to protect our countryside from agriculture is seen as the death of rural ireland
My heart sank when I read this. It will have a negative effect on the Blackwater
The height of stupidity.
Another lazy farmer cutting costs and all the time reaping the benifets frim the Eu, jail them….
What an avoidable & terrible hit onto this river – what a waste
Of Trout & other river fish species. If anyone else finds this frustrating, it’s harder to
Imagine the scale of whats happening fish stocks a few hundred miles of our coastline in our waters with Supertrawlers (from anywhere
In the world) over fishing in our territorial
Waters. Then, the EU common fisheries policy -the logic within it and just how
Poorly we as The Irish come out versus the French, Spanish quotas.
It’s a disgrace : please take a second to
Sign, Thank You https://uplift.ie/supertrawlers
Disgraceful. I remember reporting a farmer years ago for flushing his slurry tank into the Bann every Saturday at the slipway at Newferry. What was done? Nothing. They are happy to take our licence and ticket fees but not prepared to protect our rivers.
FFS, prosecute this a$$hole
Any day now the Google Ads on the page will be for Pitchforks and torches!
The Farmers again there always at it this will be one for Irelands eye
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