Daniel Nyqvist, Jonas Elghagen, Marius Heiss and Olle Calles recently published the article “An angled rack with a bypass and a nature-like fishway pass Atlantic salmon smolts downstream at a hydropower dam” in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research.

In the abstract, the authors write:

Hydropower dams disrupt longitudinal connectivity and cause fragmentation of river systems, which has led to declines in migratory fish species. Atlantic salmon smolts rely on intact longitudinal connectivity to move downstream from rearing habitats in freshwater to feeding grounds at sea. Smolts often suffer increased mortality and delays when they encounter hydropower plants during their downstream migration. Currently, there are few examples of downstream passage solutions that allow safe and timely passage. We assessed the performance of two passage solutions at a hydropower dam, namely, an angled 15-mm rack with a bypass and a large nature-like fishway. The performance of these new fish passage solutions was evaluated by tracking radio-tagged Atlantic salmon smolts as they encountered the facilities. The radio-tagged smolts passed the dam 9.5 h after release (median) and exhibited a dam-passage efficiency of 84%, with passage rates increasing with body length. Fish passage occurred through both the rack bypass and the naturelike fishway. The passage efficiencies were 70–95% for the rack bypass and 47% for the nature-like fishway. The new fish passage facilities resulted in improved passage conditions at the site, confirming that angled racks with bypasses as best practise solutions for downstream passage, but also that large nature-like fishways may act as downstream passage routes for salmon.

Access the paper here, or contact any of the authors.

Johan Watz, Anders Nilsson and Olle Calles from Karlstads Universitet, and Jonas Elghagen from Elghagen FIskevård, recently published the scientific note “Evaluation of a novel mobile floating trap for collecting migrating juvenile eels, Anguilla anguilla, in rivers” in the journal Fisheries Management and Ecology.

In the abstract, the authors write: “To improve the situation for the threatened European eel in regulated rivers, better methods need to be developed that more efficiently collect and transport juvenile eels past dams. In this study, a novel mobile, floating eel trap is described, and the results from an evaluation of the trap in two Swedish regulated rivers are presented. The mobile trap was designed to reduce the length of the climbing distance while maximizing the width of the entrance. The mobile trap caught more juvenile eels than a stationary eel ladder, serving as control. Furthermore, the mobility of the floating trap enables adaptive placement and thus offers managers the possibility to search for the spatial optimum for trapping efficiency.” Access the paper here, or e-mail any of the authors. 

The mobile floating trap next to the stationary eel ladder used as control. Photo from the Watz et al. 2017.

The mobile floating trap without cover. Juvenile eels climb the short and wide ramps (black) and slide (on the small metallic shutes) towards the left (in the photo) were they are collected. Photo: from the papers supplementary material.

The trap in the tailrace of a hydropower plant in River Lagan.

A sample of juvenile eels caught in the study, here held in a 10 L bucket.

Under sommarmånaderna har NRRV-forskares arbete eller expertis uppmärksammats i olika media. Hallandsposten skrev om passagestudier med ålyngelstudier i Laholm och intervjuade Jonas Elghagen, Lutz Eckstein intervjuades angående den invasiva lupinen i Värmlands Folkblad,och en av Anders Nilssons senaste artiklar – om hur mört-braxen-hybrider är känsligare för predation än braxen och mört –  uppmärksammades av The Economist.