The Guardian: Sewage sleuths - the men who revealed the slow, dirty death of Welsh and English rivers
“Some of our best loved and most iconic wildlife face a perilous future. We must act now to ensure that generations to come can marvel in the joys that our freshwater habitats can provide, from the magical sight of otters playing in our streams, the vibrant blue flash of kingfishers in flight, and the epic migration of the Atlantic salmon,” said a joint appeal by all of Britain’s major conservation organisations published last September.
Much of the damage has already been done. The return of otters to Britain’s rivers has been a conservation highlight of the last few decades, but the latest Welsh survey shows the first decline in their population since the 1970s. The number of salmon caught in rivers by anglers in England and Wales has dropped from about 20,000 a year in the mid-1980s to fewer than 10,000 a year now. Almost 90% of English rivers deemed sites of special scientific interest are not being properly conserved despite their highly protected status. The improvement in water quality we were so proud of as a nation has stopped.”
