Coarse fishery managers and farmers, fish health specialists, fishery consultants, angling clubs and their members, equipment suppliers, the Environment Agency, CEFAS and Government agencies attended the event which had been organised by Aquatic Consultancy Services and the College’s Fishery Studies Faculty.
Indicative of the pedigree of students Sparsholt’s Fishery department produces, is the number of guest speakers the College had trained.
Nearly 80 delegates attended to hear CEFAS’s Rob Packham (BSc graduate) give an Aquatic Animal Health Update; Chris Williams and Neil Lewin (BSc graduate) from The Environment Agency gave a Brampton Fish Health Update, what they do and what’s new.
The Environment Agency’s Adrian Saunders (Diploma graduate) presented on The Fisheries Enforcement Campaign and Supplementary Feeding and Fishery Management was the theme of former National Diploma student Andrew Ellis’ (AE Fisheries) presentation.
Amongst the many highlights of the event Nigel Shelton (Natural England) and Jake Davoile (Fishery Management Advisor, Angling Trust) informed the gathering of the outcomes from the Fish Eating Birds Policy Review.
This detailed the current situation with fish eating birds and how a catchment based management plan is to be introduced. Jake went on to inform the meeting of his role as one of the three full time Fishery Management Advisors employed through funding given to the Angling Trust as an outcome of this review.
Viv Shears, Event organiser and Sparsholt Fishery Studies Lecturer said: “We are celebrating our centenary of moving to the current campus at Sparsholt College this year and it was an honour to see so many of our former students, present in their capacity as leading experts in the fisheries and conservation field. All of us as Sparsholt graduates are extremely proud of our links with the college which has been providing fish courses since 1973. The meeting is an important event in the Coarse Fish calendar during which the industry share best practice and are updated of the issues affecting those working with fish.”
