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Appendices to Thirty-second Annual Report 



stream tides occur, the poisonous matter is stirred up to the greatest 

 extent, and the sahnon and sea trout are subjected to tlie greatest danger 

 of poisoning. When the river is high, the pollutions arejmore quickly 

 carried away, but there always is a zone of polluted water moving up 

 and down tlie Fortli estuary. Towards tlie end of July it seems to have 

 become evident to the net fishermen of the district, that the fish were 

 being seriously sickened, and when the strong tides of the first week of 

 August made themselves felt, the fish died in numbers. On Sunday, 

 3rd August, it is clear, from inquiries T have made, that great numbers 

 of sahnon died. 



The Causeway Head Ford, above Stirling, seems to mark the up- 

 stream limit of tlie mortality, and Alloa the downstream limit. Half- 

 dead fish were pulled out at many points, and very considerable numbers 

 seem to have been gathered by all sorts of people in the Alloa neighbour- 

 hood. 



I visited the district on 12th August, and found that the river watchers 

 had just buried 30. I went down the river from Stirling to Alloa by boat, 

 and had no difficulty in counting in a short time considerably more than 

 30. One came upon 3, 4, and 5 at a time caught up amongst debris of 

 all kinds in the eddies. The netsmen at their stations reported having 

 found here and there as many -as 8 and 9. The reed-covered banks, which 

 I could not examine, frequently stank of decayed fish. Gulls were to be 

 seen in flocks pecking at the carcases. I was not surprised at the freely- 

 expressed views of the netsmen. They had for days found it impossible 

 to catch living fish ; valuable salmon were rotting on every hand ; their 

 occupation had become a disgustiiig one, because of the decaying fish 

 entangled in the nets ; and, most important of all, their profits had be- 

 come most seriously reduced. 



I know what the stock of salmon taken by the Forth nets usually 

 amounts to, and it is not sufficient to tide over many evil years. 



A further consideration has to be mentioned when we think of the 

 future. The City of Glasgow proposes, by Private Bill, to obtain powers 

 to take an additional supply of water from the head waters of the 

 district. Lochs Voil and Doine are to be combined into one sheet of 

 water by means of a dam at the lower end of the latter loch, 45 feet 

 high, and all the available water is to be impounded. If this proposal 

 is carried out, the result, I fear, will seriously affect the river Teith and 

 the whole of the salmon fisheries of the Forth District. 



Loch Katrine has already been dealt with in a similar fashion, so that 

 one of the two main channels is already seriously reduced. The present 

 proposal of the City of Glasgow will leave no head tributary of any value 

 to the fisheries, the compensation flow suggested from Loch Voil to 

 the Teith being only 29,000,000 gallons, or one-third of the available 

 amount. A stream formed of 29,000,000 gallons is, in my opinion, so 

 small, that spring fish will, in all probability, not run the Teith or enter 

 Loch Lubnaig as at present. 



Further, if the pollutions to which I have referred are not materially 

 reduced before any fresh abstraction of water operates it seems to me 

 the salmon netting will be brought to such a low ebb that one may almost 

 foretell its extinction. Fish inay be expected to die every year as they 

 have done during the past summer (1913), for the past summer is simply 

 an object lesson in what will happen with a permanently small water flow. 



There is only one suggestion which I can make by way of mitigating 

 *the injury to some extent — I fear to a comparatively small extent. One 

 serious factor in the conditions proposed is the ahnost inevitable absence 

 of floods, which do so much to induce fish to ascend, as well as in the scour- 

 ing of the river bed, in summer weather. In many districts in Scotland 



