PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Do beavers benefit Scottish wild salmon?

Do beavers benefit Scottish wild salmon?
2012-08-08
(Press-News.org) Reintroduced European beavers could have an overall positive impact on wild salmon populations in Scotland, according to a study by the University of Southampton.

Representatives of recreational fisheries interests north and south of the border are concerned that beavers can harm economically important fish stocks due to their dam building activities and potential to block migratory life phases. However, results of a study conducted by scientists at the University of Southampton, funded by Scottish Natural Heritage, indicate that beavers can also have substantial beneficial effects which may outweigh those that are negative.

The study's findings highlight that while the activities of beavers can result in localised and often temporary negative impacts on fish, primarily due to dams impeding their movements and reducing the availability of suitable spawning habitat, these can be at least off-set by the benefits of increased habitat diversity and resulting abundance and productivity of fish, including salmon.

Dr Paul Kemp, a researcher in freshwater fish ecology and fisheries management from the University's International Centre for Ecohydraulics Research, who lesd the study comments that, "the positive findings were more frequently based on quantitative evidence, while discussion of negative impacts was often speculative."

Dr Kemp and his colleagues were surprised that the "weight of evidence" tended to indicate an overall positive effect considering the background of those who participated in the survey. "Most participants were from a fisheries background and whom you might expect would tend to side with the fish, but based on their experience of beaver and fish interactions tended to be positive towards beaver," he says.

Beaver reintroduction has been a contentious issue in Scotland ever since a total of 16 individuals from Norway were released in Argyll in 2009 and 2010 as part of a scientific trial conducted by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, and the host partners, the Forestry Commission Scotland.

Even more controversy surrounds the establishment of a breeding population of escaped beavers on the River Tay. This has had ramifications south of the border as the Angling Trust has written to Richard Benyon, the UK minister for Fisheries and the Natural Environment, requesting that trapping and destruction of the beavers be urgently undertaken to prevent their spread to England where it is claimed they could damage fisheries.

Researchers carried out a critical view of over 100 sources of peer-reviewed information in which benefits were cited 184 times compared to 119 for the negative effects. Analysis of existing literature indicates that beaver activity can have both positive and negative effects on fish. Negative effects relate to the construction of beaver dams which can temporarily impede the movement of some fish, particularly in narrow rivers and streams, while siltation can cause loss of spawning habitat immediately upstream of dams. But beavers can also have beneficial effects on fish by increasing the variety and area of habitats in streams, and due to the presence of dams and ponds by increasing the abundance of invertebrates, which form the main component of the diet of many stream-dwelling fish, and providing refuge during periods of high or low water flows.

The study, which was published in the leading international fisheries journal Fish and Fisheries, also reports the findings of an expert opinion survey of 49 fisheries managers, scientists, and beaver ecology experts, from Europe and North America, where most of the research has been conducted. More than half (58 per cent) of those who responded believed that the overall impact of beavers on fish populations was positive.

Professor Roger Wheater, the Chair of the Beaver-Salmonid Working Group, says: "I would be very surprised if biodiversity were not increased but our concern continues to be the impact on salmonid spawning areas and the management required to deal with situations where salmonids in any particular system are at risk."

INFORMATION:

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Do beavers benefit Scottish wild salmon?

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

1 in 3 post-partum women suffers PTSD symptoms after giving birth

2012-08-08
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops in individuals who experience highly traumatizing situations such as terrorist attacks and car accidents, but symptoms can also come about after normal life events — including childbirth. A Tel Aviv University researcher has found that approximately one third of all post-partum women exhibit some symptoms of PTSD, and a smaller percentage develop full-blown PTSD following the ordeal of labor. This surprising finding indicates a relatively high prevalence of the disorder, says Prof. Rael Strous of TAU's Sackler Faculty of ...

A new model for predicting recovery after spinal cord injury

A new model for predicting recovery after spinal cord injury
2012-08-08
New Rochelle, NY, August 8, 2012—For more than 1 million people in the U.S. living with spinal cord injury, the frightening days and weeks following the injury are filled with uncertainty about their potential for recovery and future independence. A new model based on motor scores at admission and early imaging studies may allow clinicians to predict functional outcomes and guide decision-making for therapy and care-giving needs, as described in an article published in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is ...

Boys appear to be more vulnerable than girls to the insecticide chlorpyrifos

2012-08-08
A new study is the first to find a difference between how boys and girls respond to prenatal exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos. Researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at the Mailman School of Public Health found that, at age 7, boys had greater difficulty with working memory, a key component of IQ, than girls with similar exposures. On the plus side, having nurturing parents improved working memory, especially in boys, although it did not lessen the negative cognitive effects of exposure to the chemical. Results are published ...

How JFK helped Barack Obama on his way to the White House

2012-08-08
As US President Barack Obama turns 51 this month, new research suggests imagery of one of his most iconic predecessors, JFK, helped Obama on his way to the White House. Similarities between the imagery of President Kennedy and President Obama have been highlighted in a new University of Warwick paper, due to be published in the August issue of Comparative American Studies Journal. Researcher Greg Frame, from the University of Warwick's Film and Television department , has explored how Obama, whose birthday is Saturday August 4, has shaped himself in Kennedy's image. He ...

Internists recommend principles on role of governments in regulating patient-physician relationship

2012-08-08
(Washington) – The American College of Physicians (ACP) today released a paper, Statement of Principles on the Role of Governments in Regulating the Patient-Physician Relationship, which recommends principles for the role of federal and state governments in health care and the patient-physician relationship. "The physician's first and primary duty is to put the patient first," David L. Bronson, MD, FACP, president of ACP, said. "To accomplish this duty, physicians and the medical profession have been granted by government a privileged position in society." Dr. Bronson ...

New substances 15,000 times more effective in destroying chemical warfare agents

2012-08-08
In an advance that could be used in masks to protect against nerve gas, scientists are reporting development of proteins that are up to 15,000 times more effective than their natural counterpart in destroying chemical warfare agents. Their report appears in ACS' journal Biochemistry. Frank Raushel, David Barondeau and colleagues explain that a soil bacterium makes a protein called phosphotriesterase (PTE), which is an enzyme that detoxifies some pesticides and chemical warfare agents like sarin and tabun. PTE thus has potential uses in protecting soldiers and others. ...

Study finds US among few NATO nations that use animals for military training

2012-08-08
A new study published in the August 2012 issue of Military Medicine, the journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the U.S., reveals that 22 of 28 NATO nations do not use animal laboratories for military medical training. Researchers from PETA, in collaboration with current and former military medical personnel, surveyed officials in all 28 NATO nations during 2010 and 2011. Twenty-two NATO countries—including Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the ...

Why do older adults display more positive emotion? It might have to do with what they’re looking at

2012-08-08
Research has shown that older adults display more positive emotions and are quicker to regulate out of negative emotional states than younger adults. Given the declines in cognitive functioning and physical health that tend to come with age, we might expect that age would be associated with worse moods, not better ones. So what explains older adults' positive mood regulation? In a new article in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researcher Derek Isaacowitz of Northeastern University ...

New study finds clients want real love from sex workers

2012-08-08
Los Angeles, CA (August 8, 2012) — While it is commonly believed that men who pay for sex are attempting to avoid emotional commitment, a new study finds that men who become regular clients of sex workers often develop feelings of romance and love. This study is published in a recent edition of Men and Masculinities, a SAGE journal. "In recent years, we have come to see a gradual normalization of independent escort prostitution, where sexual encounters have come to resemble quasi-dating relationships," stated study author Christine Milrod. "Our study shows that regular ...

Alcohol advertising standards violations most common in magazines with youthful audiences

2012-08-08
The content of alcohol ads placed in magazines is more likely to be in violation of industry guidelines if the ad appears in a magazine with sizable youth readership, according to a new study from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, the study is the first to measure the relationship of problematic content to youth exposure, and the first to examine risky behaviors depicted in alcohol advertising in the past decade. The researchers examined 1,261 ads for ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Aortic hemiarch reconstruction safely matches complex aortic arch reconstruction for acute dissection in older adults

Destination Earth digital twin to improve AI climate and weather predictions

Late-breaking study finds comparable long-term survival between two leading multi-arterial CABG strategies

Lymph node examination should be expanded to accurately assess cancer spread in patients with lung cancer

Study examines prediction of surgical risk in growing population of adults with congenital heart disease

Novel radiation therapy QA method: Monte Carlo simulation meets deep learning for fast, accurate epid transmission dose generation

A 100-fold leap into the unknown: a new search for muonium conversion into antimuonium

A new approach to chiral α-amino acid synthesis - photo-driven nitrogen heterocyclic carbene catalyzed highly enantioselective radical α-amino esterification

Physics-defying discovery sheds new light on how cells move

Institute for Data Science in Oncology announces new focus-area lead for advancing data science to reduce public cancer burden

Mapping the urban breath

Waste neem seeds become high-performance heat batteries for clean energy storage

Scientists map the “physical genome” of biochar to guide next generation carbon materials

Mobile ‘endoscopy on wheels’ brings lifesaving GI care to rural South Africa

Taming tumor chaos: Brown University Health researchers uncover key to improving glioblastoma treatment

Researchers enable microorganisms to build molecules with light

Laws to keep guns away from distressed individuals reduce suicides

Study shows how local business benefits from city services

RNA therapy may be a solution for infant hydrocephalus

Global Virus Network statement on Nipah virus outbreak

A new molecular atlas of tau enables precision diagnostics and drug targeting across neurodegenerative diseases

Trends in US live births by race and ethnicity, 2016-2024

Sex and all-cause mortality in the US, 1999 to 2019

Nasal vaccine combats bird flu infection in rodents

Sepsis study IDs simple ways to save lives in Africa

“Go Red. Shop with Heart.” to save women’s lives and support heart health this February

Korea University College of Medicine successfully concludes the 2025 Lee Jong-Wook Fellowship on Infectious Disease Specialists Program

Girls are happiest at school – for good reasons

Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine discover genetic ancestry is a critical component of assessing head and neck cancerous tumors

Can desert sand be used to build houses and roads?

[Press-News.org] Do beavers benefit Scottish wild salmon?