A drought ” historical hits France this summer. In the rivers, almost dry, the fish are in mortal danger. In the south of France, fishermen try to save them.
They agreed to meet in the parking lot of the Post Office in the village of the Magi, at 7 a.m., in the cool, before the sun crushed everything in its path. A group of fishermen and fishery guardians answered the call, determined to save what is left of the unfolding disaster; never had their river, the Auzonnet, which flows in the north of the Gard, at the gates of the Cévennes, in the south of France, been so low. ” I’ve been around for 50 years, never seen this, testifies Louis. And my stepfather, who is 94 years old, said to me: ”This is the first time I’ve seen this, as dry as this…” »
So, it is necessary to save the fish of Auzonnet, chub, gudgeon, perch, bleak and other minnows, trapped in the drought, when the river is almost no longer flowing, by moving them to milder waters, downstream. ” On all the completely dry part, many crayfish died, describes Maxime. The small fish were able to gather in the last puddles that are there. But up there, there is nothing left, everything is dead. The main thing is to collect the little ones and do what we can. We won’t do miracles. Of the 2,500 small fish that we will recover, 500 will have a slightly longer life expectancy. »
Neither snow in winter nor rain in summer
The fishermen are dejected, so desolate is the spectacle: ponds in a river of pebbles, filled with mud where the fish have taken refuge. “ It is not a toxic algae, says Christophe, fishing warden. It’s a green algae, but it will suck out all the oxygen. And with the heat and the lack of water, it proliferates. And the fish suffocate. »
The troubles are piling up for Auzonnet with climate change. ” In winter, 60 years ago, there was 40 to 60 centimeters of snow, assures Maxim. Today, for lack of snow, there is a lack of water in the spring, which worsens in the summer with the drought. The river, on this August morning, is no more than a bed of stones colonized by terrestrial plants, and that too is a problem: The more the plants grow, the more the roots develop and the more they retain water. So it will follow and little by little, there will be nothing… »
” One day there will be nothing »
To make matters worse, the “Cévennes episodes”, these storms whose violence is increased tenfold by the high temperature of the Mediterranean Sea at the end of the summer, do considerable damage, carrying branches and stones which will form natural dams with the lowering of the river level, preventing the water from passing. And let’s not talk about tourists! ” Without thinking of evil, relieves Vincent, which has been warning for a month about the state of the river, vacationers are making stone dams to make a body of water, or to make the current faster for canoes. The problem is that the water is getting warmer, which has an impact on the fish and everything that lives in the water. »
Fishermen are the first witnesses of the disasters of climate change on the rivers. Some, moreover, practice no-kill ; they release the fish they have caught. ” I fear that one day there will be nothing left for future generations, worries Louis. They will have the sound of water. It’s pretty, huh… Look at these poor guys, they arrive with empty basins. We didn’t catch anything… »
A drop of water
So, we go lower, where we spotted dozens of small fish trapped in brownish water. Morale is rising. ” There, we can save a lot! The smiles return. ” And if the fish let it go ? If he understood that it was for his own good ? » Wearing boots or waders, armed with a landing net, our fishermen fish as much as they can. The fish are stored in buckets of water equipped with a bubbler, a machine to make bubbles and therefore oxygen. But not too long.
Vincent had spotted a body of water lower down in the Auzonnet, deep enough for the fish to hold out until the first rains. He pours the miraculous peach into it; a hundred fish that regain the freedom to swim in oxygenated water. ” We saved part of it, a tiny part, but that’s already it. A drop of water, when so much is lacking. Here, we would like it to rain.
THE QUESTION OF THE WEEK
“August 8th is International Cat Day. But are they really threatened? »
Threatening, rather! We have already told you about serial killer cats, and in Poland, the Academy of Sciences has just classified cute little cats in the list of invasive species: they kill 140 million birds every year, in Poland alone. In Germany, in a small town near the Rhine, to protect three pairs of birds, crested larks, which nest on the ground, it is downright confinement for cats all summer. Unless they’re on a leash. The dogs are laughing.