Sanquhar Primary explore the Crawick water

Pupils from Sanquhar Primary School braved the unseasonably cold weather to explore the Crawick Water today.  We started off by electrofishing a section of the river and caught four lovey salmon parr, a trout parr and one small trout fry.  After seeing what type of fish were already in the river we decide to try to find some of the bugs and beasties that they eat and check the water quality.  We found lots of stonefly, mayfly, freshwater shrimp, caddisfly and a host of other invertebrates, all which tell us that the river is very healthy and full of food for the fish.  By this time the cold was getting to us and it was time to retreat to the bus for warmth and food to sustain us for planting the salmon fry out into the river.  Primary 3/4 had hatched the fry from salmon eggs that they had looked after in their classroom over the winter and the pupils carefully poured the small fry into their new home.

NDSFB staff demonstrate electrofishing in the Crawick Water

Identifying the fish captured

Kick sampling to find out what invertabrates are present

Planting out the fry that the pupils raised in the classroom