Can a protected area help improve fish populations under heavy recreation fishing?

0583930 - BC 2024 RIV CH eng J - Journal Article
de Moraes, Karlos Ribeiro - Souza, Allan T. - Bartoň, Daniel - Blabolil, Petr - Muška, Milan - Prchalová, Marie - Randák, T. - Říha, Milan - Vašek, Mojmír - Turek, J. - Tušer, Michal - Žlábek, V. - Kubečka, Jan
Can a protected area help improve fish populations under heavy recreation fishing?
Water. Roč. 15, č. 4 (2023), č. článku 632. E-ISSN 2073-4441
R&D Projects: GA MZe QK22020134
Grant - others:AV ČR(CZ) StrategieAV21/20
Program: StrategieAV
Institutional support: RVO:60077344
Keywords : fresh-water biodiversity * perca-fluviatilis * feeding-activity * global patterns
OECD category: Marine biology, freshwater biology, limnology
Impact factor: 3.4, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://doi.org/10.3390/w15040632

Freshwater protected areas are designated parts of the inland waters that restrict human activities. They were created as a mechanism to combat the decline of fauna and flora of the world. Some authors have questioned their actual effectiveness in terms of the purpose of protecting endangered fauna and flora. We conducted an experiment in Lipno reservoir in the Czech Republic to evaluate the impact of protection against angling pressure on the fish community. We selected data from two years of gill netting and analyzed the difference between areas of low anthropogenic impact (LAI) and those of high anthropogenic impact (HAI) in terms of abundance, biomass, standard length, and diversity indices. Three groups of fish were found to prefer protected areas with low anthropogenic pressure: 1. YOY (Young-of-the-year) perch (Perca fluviatilis), the dominant of the young-of-the-year fish community. 2. Pike (Esox lucius), wels catfish (Silurus glanis) and rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus), which were not found in HAI areas at all. 3. Larger individuals of pikeperch (Stizostedion lucioperca), which survived better in LAI areas. Some factors may affect LAI, such as illegal poaching or setting out food bait to attract the fish outside. Another factor that can be considered is the migration of fish, either to forage or to reproduce, since the LAI areas are open to the reservoir. The areas of LAI act as protective habitats for heavily exploited predatory fish species and increase fish diversity indexes. The example of the protected and low-impact areas of Lipno should be followed in other water bodies with high fishing pressure and anthropogenic impact.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0351911