The BioFresh project mentioned earlier hosts a blog on the topic of freshwater ecosystems, and their latest post caught my eye. It picks up of the publication of the newest International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, which identifies the European species threatened with extinction, and highlights the particularly vulnerable status of Europe's freshwater fishes and lampreys. The Red List has had news coverage by the BBC and Telegraph too. Most interesting in the BioFresh blog is the list of the main threats to these rare freshwater fish species that were identified by IUCN... climate change is not on the list. Instead, fairly unsurprisingly, pollution, overfishing, dams, water abstraction and invasives seem to be the factors most putting these species at risk.
Some of the at-risk species include the critically endangered European eel (top); the Chornaya gudgeon (middle), found only in Ukraine; and the Jarabugo (bottom), found in Spain and Portugal. I wonder if the 'main threats' list will have changed in the future, or if perhaps these species will be long gone before climatic changes become a significant factor? Certainly climate change could indirectly already be taking effect; we know it's linked to invasive species, and I have already mentioned that dam construction projects are undertaken to safeguard water security. As this is Europe we are talking about, perhaps a more likely driver of dam building is political pressure for 'green' carbon neutral HEP energy.
No comments:
Post a Comment