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The first stone for setting up regional policies for the protection of aquatic fauna?
In any case, this is the meaning of the work carried out for two years by the Regional Association of Fishing in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (Arpara), which has just published its very first regional red list of threatened fish and clam species.
Fish and crayfish in everyday language.
A third of them (31%) are "in danger" in the region, not counting those already extinct!
At the forefront of which we find all the local migratory species, such as the eel or the lamprey.
This is also the case for all species of salmonids, from brown trout to wild salmon.
Because yes there are salmon in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, in the Haut Allier in particular where they arrive harassed by hundreds of kilometers upstream via the Loire.
Crayfish are also not immune to the pressure on their habitat since the white-clawed crayfish is classified as critically endangered, unlike its invasive American cousin.
"Degradation of populations for several years
"
In detail, 17% of the 52 species studied are classified as "endangered", 10% as "critically endangered" and 4% "vulnerable".
By subtracting the species already extinct regionally or nationally, we arrive at only 42% of species for which the concern is minor, according to the classification of this study financed by the Region and the Dreal.
For the occasion, the Arapara received support from the National Office for Biodiversity (OFB) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Together they are committed to recovering and analyzing 20 years of data on those who inhabit our rivers.
The range of species studied was defined in conjunction with the Natural History Museum, according to their degree of endemism.
The result confirms in a scientific way the feedback from the field observing
“an evolution and a deterioration of the states of the populations for several years”
.
Read alsoDrought: in Loire-Atlantique, for the first time, wild trout fishing is prohibited
The increase in air and water temperatures as well as the reduction in the flow of rivers do not lead to an improvement.
"These pressures are identified as very impacting, even decisive for the maintenance of several species, in particular for salmonids, migratory species and the Apron (this percid endemic to the Rhône, editor's note)", supports Arpara
.
However, the water agency provides for a reduction in flows of 10 to 40% in the region by the end of the century, and up to 60% in the Rhône basin.
Less water which will heat up faster.
