EcoLocalizer

With the numerous distressing stories on the plight of so many species, its heartening to hear of a positive development in one of the largest cities in Europe.

A century ago the Seine, which flows from the north of France, through Paris to the English Channel, hosted a large flourishing population of Atlantic salmon. The salmon migrated from the sea to their freshwater birth place to reproduce from December to June every year.

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The construction of dams and the pollution of the Seine by the chemical industry, farming, industrial waste and sewage lead to the extinction of salmon in the Seine sometime between the two world wars. So bad was the situation that in 1995 only eels, redeye, bream and carp could be found in the river. Then at the end of July 2009 a weekend angler caught a six kilogram (13 pound) Atlantic salmon just downstream from Paris. This was the confirmation of the findings of the Greater Paris Water Authority who had previously determined that there are now 32 fish species in the Seine.

France’s National Federation for Fishing have also monitored the salmon moving up the river and expect that as many as 1000 will most likely have spawned in the Seine by the end of the year.

The reason is simply that the quality of water has been steadily improving over the last 15 years as massive efforts have been made to reduce discharges to the river. In fact scientists at France’s National Institute for Agricultural Research who track salmon say it is a “bellwether species”, a living indicator of their habitat’s state of health.

This revival of the salmon in the Seine will not have a direct impact on the dinner plates of the food focused French, because the fish moving up the Seine are on their way to spawn and die and those moving down the river are too small. However, the Seine by providing a spawning ground will make its contribution to the ocean population of Salmon which are under threat from many sides, with the commercial catch decreasing by 80% over the last thirty years.

This demonstration of a very tangible output of improving water quality of a river system will hopefully add to the motivation of other countries and river system authorities.

Photo by david_megginson on Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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