Fundación EDPNews

60 students from the Alto Nalón Grouped Rural School took part in restocking the river Villoria. The nursery and primary schoolchildren released 3,000 brown trout fingerlings into the main channel of the river in the town centre of Villoria, in Laviana. This activity was promoted by the Fishermen's Association and Friends of the Nalón and the EDP Foundation.

The students, who were aged between 3 and 12, learned about the characteristics of the fingerlings and the environmental importance of these types of fish-based actions for rivers. This initiative provides continuity to the work of the Fishermen's Association and the EDP Foundation by getting students from all of the towns and schools in the Nalón Valley to take part in restocking the river.

The president of the Fishermen's Association and Friends of the Nalón, Arturo Alvarez said that “with this release we want to foster respect for, improvement to and the recovery of our environment, with particular emphasis on river courses and the fish population that they are home to, thus continuing with our intention of getting students from all of the towns in the valley to take part in the restocking process, with the aim of encouraging them to care about the environment around them”.

The fingerlings released were the result of a complete spawning, embryonation, fingerling production and breeding cycle, starting from the breeding stock at the Association’s centre in Pola de Laviana. This entire process is overseen by the Ministry of Infrastructure, Regional Planning and the Environment.

With this activity, the Association brought the restocking campaign for the 2018 season to an end, in which 150,000 fingerlings and 500 breeding specimens were reared and used to restock the River Nalón and its tributaries.

This initiative reinforces the close collaboration that the Fishermen's Association and Friends of the Nalón and the EDP Foundation have enjoyed for more than fifteen years. This commitment by the Foundation to restocking fish extends to other Asturian rivers, with the support of the Royal Asturian River Fishing Association.

This collaboration between the Association and the EDP Foundation has resulted in being able to maintain a reliable, sustained balance of brown trout population densities in the medium-upper stretch of the River Nalón, reversing the continued downward trend in trout populations.