Stretches of the River Trent and Tame that were badly affected by recent pollution incidents will get an early Christmas stocking of thousands of baby fish this winter.

The Environment Agency’s Calverton Fish Farm, near Nottingham, will be providing tens of thousands of young fish including chub, dace, barbel,  roach and bream.

Many of the fish are destined for a new home in the River Trent both downstream of Stoke on Trent and close to Burton on Trent. These fish will help to re-populate a stretch of the river that was badly affected by last month’s cyanide pollution.

Many others will be released into the River Tame, which was badly affected by pollution during summer storms a few months ago.

The more mature fish, currently two to three years old, will be released into the rivers this winter.  By early summer next year, we plan to introduce baby fish (fry) and those up to a year old. Using such a wide range of ages will help fish stocks to recover more quickly.

Over the next five years or so, we will continue to build up fish stocks in the affected stretches of river by carrying out more re-stockings.

Nick Eyre, Fish Farm Technical Officer at Calverton, says “Calverton is once again taking urgent action to re-stock rivers that have suffered from pollution. We can only do so because we are funded by anglers who buy rod licences.  Later, if we can, we will seek to reclaim the cost from the polluters but it is important to act now to bring fish back to our rivers.

“But this is only the start. Over the next five years or so, we will continue to build up fish stocks in the affected stretches of river by releasing even more young fish.