River Avon angling suspended as thousands of dead fish found

Thousands of dead fish have been seen in the River Avon in Warwickshire

Fishing on a stretch of the River Avon in Warwickshire has been suspended after an "alarming" amount of dead fish was discovered.

Barford Angling Association has acted saying it did not want to put surviving fish under "undue pressure".

One official said he had never seen such high volumes of dead fish in the river.

The Environment Agency (EA) said the recent hot weather may have caused a lethal lack of oxygen.

Fishing has been suspended at the Barford Angling Association in Warwickshire

Material washed into the lake by recent storms could have also further reduced the amount of oxygen for fish, the EA said.

Angling club secretary Paul King, said thousands of very small fish had been spotted floating down the river.

There were also "quite a few" larger dead specimens including chub, barbel and brown trout that had been seen.

Paul King, of the angling association, said he had never seen such a level of dead fish in 30 years

An EA bailiff was due to visit the site, he said.

"The new river fishing season starts tomorrow, and they're all itching to get down here and get fishing, but we made the decision last night that for fish welfare it was probably better we close the venue until we can assess what sort of damage has been done," Mr King said.

"I've been fishing this venue for over 30 years - and fishing different venues for even longer - and I've never seen this sort of death of fish on this scale ever before."

'Monitoring watercourses'

The EA said that during the summer months its staff respond to many reports of fish in distress.

"Prolonged warm weather followed by intense summer rainstorms, such as those we experienced across the Midlands in the last week, including the Avon catchment, can wash material into watercourses [from] roads and in gullies," it said.

"Once in a watercourse, this material will further deplete the water of oxygen, and can lead to serious fish mortalities."

Staff were currently assessing each report to see what action can be taken, it added.

"Our teams are monitoring the watercourses and our fisheries officers are providing remediation advice to fishery owners," the EA said.