Sir, Mr Rob Yorke (letter, September 11) will be pleased to hear that his concerns for wild trout stocks, the need for habitat work to enhance their chances of survival and the need to tackle the issue of potentially harmful competition from, and interbreeding with, farmed fish, are all being addressed. Indeed, these concerns were prime reasons for the founding of The Wild Trout Trust (WTT) some years ago.
In the last four years alone, WTT has stimulated 80 in-river trout habitat improvement projects throughout Britain. A three-year research programme into the impact of stocked farmed fish on wild fish, partly funded by WTT, is currently being undertaken by the Game Conservancy Trust. The Environment Agency is in the late consultation stages of a national trout and grayling strategy which will ban stocking in newly designated wild trout protection zones.
These are not the best of times to be a wild trout, but the fish does have its friends.
Yours sincerely,
SIMON JOHNSON,
Director,
The Wild Trout Trust,
PO Box 120,
Waterlooville, Hampshire PO8 0WZ.
office@wildtrout.org
September 12.