It’s time to stop trash-talking fish

Matthew L. Miller with a longnose gar caught fly fishing

It’s time to stop trash-talking fish

by Michael Edmondstone

Matthew L. Miller is the director of science communications at The Nature Conservancy. He is also a passionate angler whose love of freshwater biodiversity calls him to question traditional approaches to fisheries management in the USA.

He has written extensively on using the phrases ‘rough fish’ or ‘trash fish’, both of which are used widely among anglers in North America. They mean the same as ‘coarse fish’ in the UK: fish that don’t make good eating and so aren’t considered game. The terms have problematic implications for non-game fish, as Matthew explained.

Can you talk through the use of the term ‘rough fish’ in fisheries management in the USA?

It stems from the idea of there being a hierarchy among fishes. It’s a European notion that held that coarse fishing was considered lower than game fishing. It has evolved over time, but there is still the distinction in many European waters between game fishing and coarse fishing. In the USA, that hierarchy has held, and fishing regulations in the USA distinguish between game fish and rough fish.

Often this translates to a complete lack of regulation for non-game fish. For instance, where I am in Idaho, you can take rough fish at any time of year, without limit, and you can spear them, snag them or shoot them with bows and arrows.

The regulations have not kept up with the science. We now know that some of these non-game species are long lived and slow to mature, but you can still kill them without limit.

How can this lack of regulation damage the wider ecosystem?

Bow fishing – fishing with a bow and arrow – used to be a niche hobby in the USA, but recently it has exploded in popularity. There are now specialised boats, specialised lighting, all this equipment, but very little research on the impact this is having on the ecosystem.

Game fish such as trout and bass have a lot of funding and research directed at them, but non-game fish have a real lack of both. There is anecdotal evidence of people noticing non-game fish such as bigmouth buffalo disappearing from certain waters, but there needs to be more studies. I co-authored a paper in the Fisheries journal that is calling for more research.

Blue sucker, USFWS
A blue sucker: non-game fish like this can broaden anglers’ horizons

Suckers can provide a new challenge for anglers.

In your recent Cool Green Science article, you said that fisheries should be ‘managed with science, not emotion’. Are fisheries usually regulated by emotion in the USA?

We have state fish and wildlife agencies that manage wildlife in the different states. In fact, a lot of the management of wildlife is at state level. Hunting and fishing have a democratic tradition in the USA, as there is unrestricted access and you don’t have to be a landowner.

Many of our wildlife species are well managed, but usually only if they are managed by hunters and anglers, as they have real interest in sound management of the species that they’re interested in.

There is pressure from anglers that is not based on science. They want lots of trout, so many lakes stock massive amounts of trout. We hope for there to be management based on science, but it is wishful thinking.

On the other hand, when anglers come together, they can be a powerful force for good. For instance, they have driven the reintroduction of lots of native trout species and subspecies.

Can you talk through some of the frustrating things you’ve seen from anglers with regards to non-game fish?

A viral video this summer showed two bowfishers counting off 1,000 gar they killed in an outing. This is nearly impossible to achieve over a weekend of hook and line angling.

And they dumped every dead fish back into the water.

The first time I tried fishing for suckers, somebody said: “Are you having any luck with the trout?”.

I said that I’m fishing for suckers.

He said that “They’re non-native and that ‘I should kill all I can”.

People often offer me unsolicited advice and are dumbfounded when I say I’m trying to catch suckers. But, as with anything, you need to recognise when it’s best for education, and when it’s best to not go down that rabbit hole: there are people who are receptive to the message, and people who are not.

Part of what I’m trying to do is shift the narrative where I can, which doesn’t mean shifting the minds of everyone. But the more people who value the non-game fish, the more hope we have.

Solomon David holding an alligator gar © Matthew Miller
Solomon David holding an alligator gar © Matthew Miller

What can be done to educate anglers?

Rarely does making somebody aware of an issue change it.

But in the USA there is a tremendous outdoor media, and there are voices in that media that have influence, so if they say an alligator gar is a trophy fish, people will listen.

When alligator gars were featured on Jeremy Wade’s River Monsters, suddenly people wanted to go out and catch and release them. That’s a change of value among anglers that was driven by a television show.

We have a long way to go, and as with most things, it has to be a combination of a change in attitudes and change in regulation, and both of these will feed each other.

What can anglers do to be a force for positive change?

They can really get to know their streams. I know anglers who know mayfly habits and the behaviour of trout really well, but don’t really know much about the other fish species. Knowing more about the biodiversity can make you a better angler, and it can also help you expand your angling horizons – catching a bigmouth buffalo can be a tremendously challenging endeavour, and that can really flip the narrative.

Matthew’s book ‘Fishing Through the Apocalypse’ is out now. It explores what the future holds for fish and the people who pursue them through a series of fishing stories about the reality of the sport in the 21st century.

Matthew is also the editor of Cool Green Science: the conservation science blog from The Nature Conservancy.

You can find him on Twitter at @eatguineapigs.

‘Forgotten Fishes’ report released

© Beta Mahatvaraj

Shoal has released a critical report with WWF and 15 other leading conservation organisations , calling on governments to commit to an Emergency Recovery Plan for global freshwater biodiversity.

‘The World’s Forgotten Fishes’ report is a urgent call to arms for authorities to ramp up their action towards conserving freshwater ecosystems. Bold, ambitious prioritisation will be essential if we are going to bend the curve of the biodiversity crisis and safeguard the futures of freshwater species. As the report says, ‘2021 may be the last chance for governments to chart a new course that could reverse the loss of nature and put the world back onto a sustainable path’.

World's Forgotten Fishes (REPORT FINAL)

The report details the importance of freshwater fish, and discusses their central role in the livelihoods of millions of people around the world. It discusses the money generated through recreational activities such as angling, the impressive cultural heritage fish have woven into our lives, and the potentially surprising fact that aquarium fish are more popular than cats or dogs.

It explains the reasons for the catastrophic decline in fish species populations and, crucially, sets out the Emergency Recovery Plan that is needed to guide policymakers:

  1. Allowing rivers to flow more naturally.
  2. Reducing pollution.
  3. Protecting critical wetland habitats.
  4. Ending overfishing and unsustainable sand mining.
  5. Controlling invasive species.
  6. Safeguarding and restoring connectivity.

The report confirms that the ‘freshwater transition is a realistic and pragmatic one, based on measures that have already been tried and tested in at least some rivers, lakes and wetlands’, and goes on to say that ‘it is a comprehensive plan that moves us away from today’s ad hoc conservation successes towards a strategic approach that can deliver solutions at the scale necessary to reverse the collapse in biodiversity and set us on course to a future where our freshwater ecosystems are once again fully healthy and teeming with freshwater fishes and other wildlife’.

Over the coming weeks we will be highlighting Forgotten Fishes in a number of magazines and podcasts, including this interview with Mike Baltzer in angling magazine The Wading List. Keep an eye on our social media channels to stay updated with the latest.

Starting Shoal in Germany

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by Mike Baltzer

In October, I was invited to be a keynote speaker at the WWF European Freshwater Practice meeting in Berlin. While I was there, I also had a number of meetings aimed to help take Shoal forward in Germany. We are keen to establish a base in Germany to be able to work with companies and hobbyists in Germany and the rest of the European Union.
At the WWF meeting, I had four key messages for the WWF participants. I made the case that successful freshwater conservation must include:

  • Species first – a systems approach and policy led actions must be anchored on targeted impact at the species level
  • Support local action – hundreds of thousands of local actions is the best way to mobilise change and sustain impact
  • Form partnerships – Success lies in effective, powerful collaborations.
  • Raise awareness – despite being the number one priority for global conservation, freshwater biodiversity is the least well known
Presenting at the WWF European Freshwater Practice Meeting in Berlin

 

Meeting with the team at ZZF in Weisbaden

While I only attended the first day of their four-day planning meeting, I learnt of their excellent programmes for free-flowing rivers, sturgeons and a new exciting global initiative for river dolphins.

Two other meetings of note started with Volker Homes, the Director of VdZ the German (Association of Zoo Gardens). He explained the importance of his organisation as a coordination and support to zoos that want to support conservation in the field or even by expert amateurs. Unfortunately, the Director of the Berlin Zoo, Dr Andreas Kneiriem, was away that week but we caught up by phone a week later and discussed a potential future partnership.

After Berlin, I travelled west to Weisbaden and the offices of ZZF. ZZF is the German Pet and Trade Association and the leading association for the aquarium trade. Dr. Stefan Hetz, a leading aquarist at ZZF invited six others from ZZF, BNA and Aquaria Glaser to discuss the next steps and needs for establishing Shoal in Germany. By the end of the week, it was clear that there is a great deal of enthusiasm, support and opportunities for Shoal in Germany and the next stage is to secure the funding to hire a person to represent Shoal in Germany.

I would like to thank everyone that took the time to meet with me and helped with the meetings and discussions.

VdZ Verband der Zoologischen Gärten https://www.vdz-zoos.org/

ZZF is Zentralverband Zoologischer Fachbetriebe Deustchlands https://www.zzf.de/

BNA is the Bundesverband für fachgerechten Natur-, Tier- und Artenschutz bna-ev.de

Aquarium Glaser is a leading and widely respected fish supply company aquariumglaser.de

Expedition Mahseer

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On May 8, I travelled to southern India with a team of fish experts to scope out a joint project to save the hump-backed mahseer. The trip comes at the tail of a long story of conservation detective work of one of the world’s most charismatic fishes that has led us to take action, in the eleventh hour, to save a critically-endangered fish before it disappears forever. Mike Baltzer, Executive Director of Shoal, reports from a project scoping trip to southern India.

There are some creatures that have inspired and awed people through the ages. Some real animals like lions, tigers and elephants and some legendary like dragons or the unicorn. The mahseer (Tor spp.), a genus of very large, often beautiful and powerful fishes found in South and south-east Asia, fall right between the two. Mahseer are a real animal that has reached legendary status.

Often referred to as the “tiger of the river”, mahseers have been revered by the Indus Valley civilisation for more than 3000 years, worshipped by Buddhists and Hindus and treasured by local communities throughout the region. More recently, their fame has been maintained by featuring as one of the great icons of wild river angling – and it was this angling that has helped propel a species into conservation limelight.

For many years, anglers have yearned to fish for mahseer. Many stories and books have been written on the wonders of fishing for mahseer and the ultimate target, the holy grail of mahseer fishing, is the largest of the mahseers, the hump-backed mahseer.

The story of the hump-back has its own twist in its tail. Hump-backs are only found in the Cauvery River system in southern India and were first popularised in the late 19th century by British officers who considered mahseer angling to present a superior sporting challenge to shooting big game. Following Indian independence in 1946, many believed the mahseer had gone extinct, until a new era of conservation minded catch-and-release anglers (including Jeremy Wade of River Monsters fame) proved the fish was still extant and reignited a global interest in mahseer fishing in the late 1970’s. This drove the establishment of a recreational fishery, where the income from international anglers was used to employ local villagers as angling guides, drivers, bait makers and cooks. This quickly led to the realisation that local livelihoods now relied on the mahseer and that a live mahseer had a renewable value over a dead fish. Accordingly, whole communities started protecting this river from the poachers who often used highly destructive fishing methods (such as dynamite!).

In 2010 Adrian Pinder, a fisheries scientist from Bournemouth University and Director of the Mahseer Trust, took a curious and thankfully scientific look at the detailed records of the daily catch. In the records, together with the photos taken by the proud anglers, he noticed that there were two types of fish recorded, one with blue fins and the other with orange fins. He also noticed that overtime the larger orange-finned fish was declining while the blue-finned version was increasing. Could it be that these two were separate species and that one was beginning to push the other out? Pinder set off to find out and in 2018 he presented the results of his detective work which afforded the hump-back mahseer its first valid scientific name allowing the species formal recognition and qualification for conservation status assessment. In November 2018 the hump-backed mahseer was assessed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Without action, Pinder and his colleagues concluded, the hump-backed would be lost in our generation

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Discussing with the locals
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Meeting Photo
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Images top to bottom, left hand coloumn to right hand column: 1) The Bhavani river, once home to the hump-backed mahseer and a potential relocation site; 2) Rapid flowing section of the Moyar River 3) The Moyar River, last stronghold of the hump-backed mahseer; 4) A dam on the Moyar River 5) Mike Baltzer with the jeep lent to the expedition by the Wildlife Institute of India; 6) The team searching for radio-telemetry sites over the Moyar Gorge; 7) Adrian Pinder (Mahseer Trust), Dr Anthony Johnson (WII) and Vidya Atkore (WWF) interviewing local experts on the hump-backed mahseer; 8) Meeting at WWF India to discuss the future of a regional programme for all mahseer species; 9) Outside WWF Coimbatore Office

What Pinder and his colleagues including southern India’s most respected fish taxonomist Dr Rajeev Raghavan discovered, was that the “blue-finned” mahseer had originated from a single hatchery and had been released into the Cauvery river basin in an attempt to conserve this species. Now the dominant mahseer species throughout much of South India, including the Cauvery, the fish had not only established, but become highly invasive – outcompeting the hump-backed mahseer for resources and pushing it towards extinction. It was only a dam (so often the scourge of fish populations) that had stopped the blue-fins from spreadinginto the final refuge of the hump-backed mahseer. There was therefore a chance to save it before it was too late. In late 2018, Pinder approached me and Shoal to suggest that we help the Mahseer Trust and others establish a project to save the hump-backed mahseer.

The last refuge of the hump-backed mahseer is found in the Moyar River one of the tributaries of the Cauvery and is confined to the stretch upstream of the Bhavanisagar dam. The Moyar River is set in the stunningly beautiful location of the Nilgiri mountains. It is famous for its outstanding gorge and the wealth of its wildlife. The area is home to one of the largest remaining populations of Asian elephant and falls between three highly important tiger reserves. The Moyar Valley itself has witnessed a remarkable recovery of its tiger population in the last ten years.

The trip this May was to establish the location and the research strategy for the project. The first stage of the project is to gather, as fast as possible, information on the status, distribution, ecology and most important, the breeding cycle of the hump-backed mahseer. While for many fish species this would be a straight forward exercise, our project scoping trip has shown that it certainly will not be easy for this fish. The project will require access to some of the most inaccessible areas in Asia and once there, the field teams will need to deal with the daily threat from tigers, elephants, leopards, sloth bears and crocodiles.

The initial work will require tracking the movements of the mahseer using bio- telemetry. This will involve inserting transmitting tags into individual fish and placing receiver stations at strategic locations along the river, extending into the unexplored and mysterious Moyar Gorge. This work will be led by the Mahseer Trust, Bournemouth University (UK), the Wildlife Institute of India and Kochi University Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS). In addition to the ecological research, the status of the environmental conditions such as water flow and pollution levels will be monitored. The project will also need to make the first steps towards preparing local community support, potentially involving WWF and Lively Waters. Once the team has better knowledge about the fish and the opportunities and threats to its conservation, a recovery plan, potentially centred on assisted breeding and reintroduction will be put in place.

Shoal’s role in the project is to help secure the funds to undertake this vital project. We will begin fundraising immediately and aim to start the project in November.

If you would like to support the project contact: mike@shoalconservation.org

An Interview with Jeremy Wade

Congo Option 2 – Jeremy Fishing
Jeremy Wade is a TV presenter, angler and author, best known for the series River Monsters and, more recently, Mighty Rivers. With a background as a biologist, Jeremy has visited many of the world’s most iconic rivers and lakes, seen and fished for some of their most extraordinary species and witnessed the changes happening to the planet’s greatest freshwater ecosystems. Jeremy shared some stories and thoughts at the recent launch of Shoal, a new initiative for freshwater conservation hosted by Synchronicity Earth. I spoke to him afterwards about some of the challenges for freshwater conservation and how he thinks Shoal can contribute.

Q: Was there a moment you realised that a lot of rivers you were spending time on were in trouble, or was it more of a gradual realisation?

JW: A bit of both, really. It has been gradual, but there have also been moments where it’s really hit home. Right from the start, I was aware that for the kind of fish I was looking for, it wasn’t just that people weren’t going and fishing for them, it was actually that these fish were disappearing because of all the damage that has been done to rivers in recent years.

One experience that really brought it home was the last time I went to the Congo. I was in a place on the Congo River where very few outsiders go, somewhere with a very low population density. I went to one village where people have a history of fishing for catfish and the scarcity of these fish – we’re talking about the main Congo here – really struck me. It is shocking to see the impact that even a small human population can have on fish.

Q: Why do you think that freshwater is something of a ‘cinderella issue’, and doesn’t get the attention that, for example, tropical forests or coral reefs get?

JW: I think it boils down to two things. Firstly, you can’t see the animals you’re talking about – or at least most people can’t – so it’s a lack of visibility. And then, if you do get to see them, a lot of freshwater fish are not great looking!

I used to do quite a bit of diving and I always wanted to be diving in rivers, where you’re generally not going to see very far. Most divers are interested in coral reefs and other marine environments, so people used to wonder why I was so keen to see brown fish in brown water! It’s true that a lot of freshwater fish aren’t all that exciting visually, but in fact there are some incredible looking fish out there in rivers and lakes, even if we don’t often get to see them. Something like the arapaima, in the Amazon, for example, get this incredible red colouration. I’ve seen individuals in breeding season where the body goes absolutely jet black, but then they have this vivid red on the edge of the scales. They’re amazing looking things, but most people would never see that. If they do see them, it’s because a fisherman has caught one and is cutting it up.

Then there are other freshwater species that just look very odd indeed. For example, the Goonch catfish in India looks like something out of the imagination of Hieronymus Bosch, it’s like a giant slug, has tentacles hanging off all different parts of its body and huge spiky teeth. I don’t think we make enough of how unique and bizarre many of these species actually are.

Q: In a way, it’s similar to what you see with some of the deep-sea species, and all the amazing creatures that live in the ocean depths. The fascination is often precisely because of how extraordinary – and how ugly (to some) – they look.

JW: Yes, there seems to be a spectrum: you’ve got the pretty fish, then you’ve got the ordinary looking fish, which nobody is really interested in, but once you start shading into the ugly fish, the interest picks up again!

Q: It is not always easy to recognise the importance and relevance of the world’s great rivers and lakes to our health and wellbeing, wherever we live. Why should people care about freshwater systems on the other side of the planet?

JW: Absolutely, I think it’s a very abstract subject and difficult to get across. From my point of view, having a scientific background, you understand the water cycle, you know that it’s not one particular river, in isolation, but that in fact water circulates throughout the world, and passes through every one of us. Just as many of us have a strong interest in air quality, we should have the same interest in water quality. The great thing about fish is that their presence in water generally tells you that the water is OK. But to get this across in a way that is not overly scientific is difficult. I think you almost do it by stealth.

If you can get people interested in the fish, which I hope I do through the programmes I make, the idea is that people start to care more about those fish and, by extension, about the water and the habitat they live in, and they begin to understand that protecting these fish and habitats is ultimately in their own interest too.

Goonch Catfish (Bagarius Yarrelli) (c) Icon Films
Goliath tigerfish (Hydrocynus goliath) (c) Icon Films

Q: Having visited so many of the world’s great rivers, is there one that particularly stands out?

JW: Hmm. That’s such a hard one, actually. There’s not a short answer to that. If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would have said the Essequibo river in Guyana. The fauna and flora there is very Amazonian. Even though it’s a distinct watershed, historically it was joined up, so you’ve got a lot of Amazonian fish there. To have a realistic chance of catching certain big Amazonian fish, that was theplace to go because the river had enjoyed a degree of protection, and it was possible to find some incredible fish there. Unfortunately in the last few years, that has changed quite dramatically, largely due to a surge in goldmining. The mining isn’t just affecting the goldmining areas. What’s happening now is that it is worth people’s while to get an icebox and make the long journey up the river, catch a lot of fish and go back down and sell them to the goldminers. Unfortunately – and this is very relevant in terms of what Shoal is trying to do – this decline is going on right before our eyes and getting very little attention, and it’s happening fast, really just in the last 5 years.

Q: What are some of the things you’ve learnt from the people who have fished these places for generations?

From talking to fishermen in different parts of the world, I’ve been struck by how common it is now to hear things like, “You know, 100 years ago this river was full of fish…”. People often talk about the scale of change over a – relatively short – timescale of a few generations.

One thing that is very clear is that catching freshwater fish is dependent on place and timing. Being in the right place is one thing, but you also have to be there at the right time of year. If you’re there at the wrong time you might as well not bother. Of course, there’s always a bit of uncertainty about what state the river is going to be in, and a certain amount of variation. But what I’ve found, just about everywhere I’ve been, especially over the last 10 years or so – everywhere from the far East of Russia to South America, through Europe and Africa – is that people are saying the whole cycle has become far more unpredictable. What’s interesting is that these people are not scientists. These are people whose lives depend on the river, people who are watching the river very closely, people who have inherited knowledge of what happens on that river. They say that over the last 10 years, they just can’t predict it any more. So, of course, this affects the fish.

You can imagine fish migrations where the river is going up so the fish start to head upstream, only for the water to suddenly start coming back down again, without ever properly rising. I’ve seen a similar thing with freshwater turtles in Guyana. The river starts going down, exposing the sandbars so the turtles think it’s time to breed, dig a nest and lay their eggs, then they get back in the river and it starts coming up again, washing away the nests! It’s another false start to the dry season.

So this really is happening, and perhaps one way to engage people in climate change is to show how it affects certain animals. People seem to love turtles, so if turtles come under the remit of Shoal, then I think that could be an interesting leverage point.

Q: I think the aim for Shoal is ultimately to try to increase support for all freshwater species, so turtles would certainly come under its remit. So, do you think the key to drawing people in is to focus on the more ‘iconic’ species, and particularly the apex predators, as you often do in your shows?

JW: Well, I guess it could be seen as a fairly cheap trick, in a way, but what I’ve realised – and this is part of the DNA of River Monsters – is that everybody is fascinated by predators. If they tell you otherwise, they’re lying! For our ancestors, it was all about paying attention to those things in the environment that were dangerous, so it’s absolutely fundamental to who we are as living beings. For River Monsters, we start with a story – here’s this fierce animal that bites people – and we immediately have people’s attention. Then, from there, we can take the story wherever we want it to go.

Q: Anglers are clearly an important audience for your programmes. What role do you think anglers can – and should – play in freshwater conservation?

JW: Anglers have an incredibly important role as the eyes and ears of what is out there. By teaming up with scientists and through citizen science initiatives, they can be a very useful resource in helping to understand what is happening to rivers and lakes. But on a more fundamental level, an angler’s pastime depends on fish, so it really should be a duty to have a concern for the wider world of fish. It’s about having a respect for freshwater fish and to express that in as many ways as possible. I think some anglers don’t particularly care, but an awful lot do. I think there are enough anglers who care to make a huge difference.

Piraiba catfish (Brachyplatystoma filamentosum (c) Icon Films
Arapaima (Arapaima gigas) (c) Icon Films

An interview with Mike Baltzer, Director of Shoal

Celebes Rainbow Fish Marosatherina ladigesi rainbowfish

So Mike, in a nutshell, what is Shoal?

MB: Shoal has been created as an initiative to save the world’s most threatened freshwater biodiversity. There is a crisis underway for the world’s wetlands that has been ongoing for many years, but largely unrecognised by the wider public. Since 1970, according to the WWF Living Planet Report, there has been an 84% decline in wetland biodiversity and one in three freshwater species are under threat of extinction. We need to respond to this crisis and through Shoal we plan to engage as many people as possible in this effort.

On a personal level, why focus on freshwater fish after working for so long on tiger conservation?

MB: I became aware of the crisis for freshwater fishes many years ago when we were prioritising conservation efforts in the Mekong region and later when I worked on the Danube. It was while I was working on tigers that I had the idea that we might be able to tackle the crisis for fish by engaging precisely those people who already have a strong interest in fish and wetland biodiversity. It seemed to me that while there was lack of funding and a huge gap in conservation effort for fish, there was a very large community already hugely passionate about fish such as aquarium hobbyists, anglers, public aquaria and zoos, inland fisheries and all the businesses associated with these activities. Yet there seemed to be little concerted effort to harness this passion to conserve freshwater species and diversity.

Tigers are incredible animals and they face severe challenges. However, their charisma and iconic status garners them a great deal of attention and effort. I really wanted to use my experience to focus on a fundamental challenge for biodiversity conservation,  those neglected freshwater ecosystems, full of incredibly beautiful, fascinating and diverse species that so desperately need our help. Every day, it is a true to delight to discover more and more about the wonders of freshwater species.

Canyon of Rijeka Crnojevica river in Skadar Lake National Park. One of the most famous views of Montenegro. The Green Pyramid and the bend of the river between mountains.

You say that Shoal focuses on freshwater biodiversity but mainly talk about fish? Which is it?

MB: Shoal was set up to tackle the freshwater species crisis. However, the entry point for most people and businesses are fish. So, while we wouldn’t normally consider most fish as flagship species, for many they certainly are. Also people like Jeremy Wade, who has kindly offered to speak at our launch on March 1, have done a great deal to popularise fish to a very wide audience. Furthermore, often where there are threatened species of fish, there are other threatened species. When you protect and restore the fish habitat, you are providing the conditions for survival for many other species. However, as Shoal develops, we will certainly have a specific focus on many species other than fish. For example, we already have one project concept to look at the conservation status of a group of plants called cryptocorynes: these are popular aquarium plants, but they may be going extinct due to over collection and habitat destruction.

Can you describe the relationship between Shoal and Synchronicity Earth?

MB: When we first began conceptualising Shoal, a number of the experts recommended that we contact the freshwater team at Synchronicity Earth (SE) as they were aware that their focus was on helping neglected and overlooked species. In preliminary meetings with scoping partners, we decided that to set Shoal off we would need a home in an existing organisation, and we were pleased that SE agreed to make it one of their programmes and to host the initiative and partnership. SE is committed to supporting initiatives that leverage a greater impact for threatened species such as amphibians and now they are doing that for other freshwater species via Shoal. The team at SE is an invaluable platform from which to develop Shoal.

Sulawesi shrimp
Carp, Oxbow of the Aare River, Switzerland (c) Michel Roggo

It is refreshing to hear about a partnership approach. Who are the partners?

MB: The partnership is the essence of Shoal – in fact, it is the Shoal! While we start with the usual conservation partners such as IUCN and WWF, and know that their participation and support is vital, the partners that will really make a difference, particularly in the long run, are those that are already invested in fish. These are the anglers, aquaria and fishing hobbies and businesses. The conservation world and the hobbyist world have largely been separated, sometimes in conflict. Shoal aims to provide a platform for these two to work together. There are already a few examples of this happening, but to make a difference we need to broaden and deepen these partnerships.

One set of important partners are our local partners, who undertake the direct conservation work. These are very often small, community-led organisations that volunteer their time to saving these species but have very limited resources to be effective and to sustain their activities. Our job at Shoal is to help them find the funding and support their training where necessary.

It is great to hear that Shoal is providing a platform for anglers and aquarists to engage. In practical terms, what can they do to help?

MB: First and foremost, we all need to learn more about the issues. Anglers and aquarists already know a great deal about the status of the species that they are interested in and often about the habitat in the wild where these species survive. But we need to share that information more widely. Secondly, it is important to learn about the best way to fish and source the fish for their aquaria. There is plenty of guidance already on this available and we have some pointers to this on our website. Thirdly, they can get engaged in conservation activities either through their local associations or through existing conservation schemes. There are plenty out there. Finally, while conservation starts in the back garden, most of the highest priorities for conservation, and those which receive the least support, are found outside Europe and North America. To help these species, they can donate to the projects that we are raising funds for on the other side of the world. Anglers and aquarists can learn about these projects and support our partners to make the difference. We are also looking at improving ways that anglers and aquarists can actively participate in species recovery projects, for example, by helping zoos to breed populations of rare species.

What will Shoal do?

MB: Well, we are just getting started. It will take some time for us to build up the partners and relationships with supporters before we can really make the impact we desire and which is so urgently needed. The sooner we can fast-track it the better, but we will need some patience. Shoal’s principal objective is to catalyse action on the ground for the most threatened species. This requires funding and a much higher level of capacity to implement. We believe that the secret lies in strong, local organisations whether it is communities or local government or organisations set up for nature conservation. We do have some projects that we are now scoping and people can learn about and directly support those. You can find these on our website.

And where do you see Shoal, say in 5-10 years?

MB: We plan to have a global network of supporters that can be active in freshwater species conservation and one by one we can begin to ensure that each threatened fish species is the focus of conservation action.

Do you have one last message?

MB: My main message is, if you are interested in and care about freshwater habitats and all the amazing species they are home to, please help us to spread the word and please get in touch. Shoal is a partnership where the stronger we swim together the better we can help fish and other freshwater species.