The National Coarse Fish Rearing Unit, run by the UK's Environment Agency, has reported its production statistics for 2024, stocking 510,488 fish throughout the year, with species including bream, rudd, and roach, amongst others. This constitutes an increase of 6.5 percent year-on-year.
Additionally, the Unit reared and released almost 2 million fish larvae into England's rivers and lakes.
"We take great care in ensuring that every fish is fit for purpose when stocked out into the wild. During their [time] at the farm, the fish are fed live natural food, they encounter a range of flora and fauna and are trained in flowing conditions while being grown in the earth ponds," said Richard Pitman, technical specialist at the Fish Rearing Unity, in a press release.
"Winter is a good time to introduce the fish into rivers, as the water temperatures are low and this minimises any stress on the fish, giving them the best possible survival rates. It enables them to acclimatise to their new surroundings, ahead of their spawning season in the spring," he added.
Despite its later success, the 2024 restocking programme got off to a rocky start with a challenging spawning season characterised by low temperatures and high rainfall.
"This made locating and obtaining sufficient broodstock at the optimum time difficult. These conditions also impacted the start of our second-year production cycle. With the storms and reduced temperatures experienced through April and into May, live food production and pond advancement was reduced causing a knock-on effect to the stocking programme," explained Pitman.
"Despite the challenging start in 2024, the team at Calverton showed their dedication and commitment throughout the growing season to produce an increase in fish production compared to last year. Their diligence has resulted in over half a million, high quality, fit for purpose fish, being released into the wild throughout England," he concluded.
