Corvera de Toranzo, (EFE) more mighty.
This is what the Government of Cantabria is doing in some rivers in the autonomous community, which are on average 47 percent below their historical flow, with the aim of not jeopardizing the future of species such as salmon, trout or Eel.
The system begins with a small electric shock -performed by an operator with a device on his shoulders- to “stun the fish a bit”, catch it with a net and put it in a bucket with oxygen to quickly transfer it by car to an area with a flow most suitable one that allows you to continue downstream, which has already saved almost 3,000 fish in a month.
Most of them are two-year-old salmon hatchlings that, with the size of a sardine, have to reach the sea to complete their life cycle.
The Cantabrian Minister of Fisheries, Guillermo Blanco, whose department has decided with the sector to close several sections of salmon rivers to fishing due to the current situation of drought, has verified in situ the operation of this system, which moves the fish in just half an hour from one place to another.
Two or three days of life
By being trapped, the life expectancy of these hatchlings is reduced to two or three days -in the case of the Pas river, which has concentrated the work this Friday- not only due to the lack of water, but also due to the lack of oxygen in the pool that is formed. “If we didn’t remove them, several thousand fish would have died,” Blanco said.
The system, called electrotaxis, is done every year, although not at this time. “It is unusual that in April we are rescuing fish and that means that the drought has come early, as in the whole country,” said Blanco, who laments that “it is not raining at all”, although rainfall is expected this weekend.
The natural environment agent Juan Miguel Gil, responsible for fluvial matters, explained that the Pas river -which this Friday has concentrated the transfer work- has a “long and dry kilometer”, which in summer can reach “eight”.
The mayoress of Corvera de Toranzo, Mónica Quevedo, agreed with this idea, assuring that the drought has come a couple of months earlier than usual and that this is the earliest that she can remember in the municipality.