Are there any yellowfish breeding programs?

[dar]

Are there any yellowfish breeding programs? If not, why not?

[fish]

I now Cape Nature use to breed Clanwilliam Yellows at some stage, don't think it's going anymore. Since these species, together with Sawfin and Whitefish are the most threatened, breeding should be the logical thing to start doing.

[Herman Jooste]

Are there any yellowfish breeding programs? If not, why not?

That is a very good question Dar! Maybe we should direct it to the YWG and the Eco care Trust?

[MCC]

The Clanwilliam breeding program was situated close to the Clanwilliam Dam wall. It was run by Mike Dohlhoff in those days, but as far as I know it was closed down due to lack of funding.

At the moment most conservation efforts seems to be in the form of stocking these endangered species into controlled environments like farm dams. It is pretty useless to stock them back into the original rivers as this would simply increase the condition factor of the resident Bass populations. There are however plans afoot to create "safe rivers" by poisoning Bass populations and blocking these rivers off from re infestation by building barriers.

Cheers
MC

[Pierre]

...There are however plans afoot to create "safe rivers" by poisoning Bass populations.....
MC

No need to poison the bass Chuck just contacted us and offered his service. Chuck says he doesn't go fishing, because fishing can mean failure or success..... He goes Killing....with his deadly Chuck Nymphing technique that doesn't even involve a Fly Rod..mmmm


Sorry guys )

How do they poisen the bass without killing any other species ?

[dar]

Ryan Weaver should know more about this cos he told me that they had just stocked the Jonkerhoek fishery with witvis..... Ryan?

[Chris Shelton]

Scientific Services of CNC have been breeding Yellows and Witvis for a number of years now and have already stocked a number of dams in the Kouebokkeveld. One of them being Rietvlei.

I am joining Dean next friday for some snorkelling. He is very excited to show me some Witvis in the Hex River. I can't wait!

[Andre]

Ja , i heared that Dean was involved with this. I would be interested to get some feedback after you see him Chris.
Also with regards the Vaal, perhaps Keith Wallington has some comment on this sublect, althoug he is probably involved in yellowfish conservation only, and not neccessarily preeding programs.

[Ryan Weaver]

Yeah, CapeNature are busy setting up isolated populations especially of Witvis in order to one day supply the river restocking programme. We've moved fish to a number of dams so far including ours here at Jonkershoek and the results thus far have been very positive.

[keithw]

hi all,

Mike (Maximum?) made me aware of this thread and asked if I would like to post, thanks Mike.

Part of the reason why there are relatively few yellowfish breeding projects in existence in RSA is partly due to the moratorium the Yellowfish Working Group placed on stocking yellowfish some 4 odd years back: this moratorium was put in place because very little is known about the differences in DNA between the various yellowfish species, until we know what populations are indeed distinct species it would be dangerous to allow parties to stock fish from 1 side of a catchment to another, or from 1 river system to another (even if the distance between the 2 only a few kms).

breeding projects would of course exacerbate this problem as a large volume of fish of species x would be available for stocking, possibly into rivers that are not the natural range of that species. the result of this would potentially be:

1. interbreeding with the indigenous yellowfish species, leading to a weak strain of fish that would have reduced immunity and potential to fight the elements and disease... ultimately extinction is very possible in this scenario.

2. the introduced species may displace the indigenous species due to aggresiveness, habitat requirement, feeding habits etc resulting in extinction of the indigenous species

the YWG genetic study is pretty much concluded after years of hard work in sample collection from all over RSA and Lesotho and beyond and the final reports are being written up by the Profs involved.

Hopefully thereafter, private and public bodies will be empowered information to make informed decisions around which species should be supported with stockings in which areas.

in the 60's and 70's a number of yellowfish of the wrong species were introduced to support local species that had been impacted by pollution etc...there were some undesirable effects, we'd like to avoid this happeneing again.

Of course the ideal is to maintain the natural habitat in a pristine state so that stocking is unecessary.

I hope this has added some further perspective to your discussion on yellowfish breeding programmes.

Please email me at keith@yellowsonfly.com should you wish to discuss further on this or other subjects.

Some of you may remember the thread on day ticket fees, Mike (Maximum) and I are meeting up for a beer to discuss further, please contact me if you are keen to join us some time next week in JHB.

cheers,
keith