Home to salmon, seals, otters and eels, the River Tees is now a thriving ecosystem once again. But managing and maintaining this precious wildlife habitat is a delicate balancing act.
Seals are part of a diverse ecosystem on the River Tees
Flowing from the North Pennines to the North Sea, the River Tees has been a flourishing trade route since medieval times. During the Industrial Revolution, it became a vital link for transporting coal and steel, and by the dawn of the 20th century, the river was at the centre of a burgeoning chemical industry.
“All these industries had a huge ecological impact on the river,” says Stuart Moodie, our heritage and environment manager for the region. By the middle of the 20th century, the river was pretty much ecologically dead.”
Tees Barrage on the River Tees
Thankfully through tighter controls around sewage discharge, water management and wildlife conservation the river began to recover, and by the early 90s, fish stocks were on the rise. However, the construction of the Tees Barrage in 1995, presented a new challenge.
Designed to control the flow of the river and prevent flooding, the barrage could have created a barrier for eels, salmon and other migratory fish, interrupting their progress upstream. But a number of measures were implemented to ease their path, including the construction of a new fish and eel passes and sophisticated technology to monitor their numbers.
Nonetheless, in recent years concerns grew over the number of seals gathering below the barrier and catching salmon and sea trout trying to find their way round the barrier. That’s why we’ve been conducting annual seal surveys to see if their presence has an impact on the number of salmon making it though. The latest figures show that while seals do prey on salmon below the barrage, fish are still making it upstream to their traditional spawning grounds. However, as salmon stocks are described as ‘at risk’ by the Environment Agency, we are doing all we can to help, including creating a new, more efficient fish pass to improve the ability of migratory fish to get past the barrage.
The Tees also attracts water birds, such as kingfishers, dippers and mallards
It’s not just the local fish populations that need a helping hand. The Tees Barrage is home to a plethora of wildlife, including birds, insects, and rodents, some of which are critically endangered.
Water voles, in particular, are in sharp decline across our rivers and waterways, pushed out of their natural habitats by human encroachment and preyed on by invasive mink. Yet a small population has found a foothold on the Tees, making their homes in the soft banks upstream. Fellow members of the Tees Valley Nature Partnership, such as the Tees Valley Wildlife Trust and Tees River Trust, are doing all they can to help them survive and thrive.
The parklands surrounding the Tees barrage are also popular with insects and pollinators, thanks to dozens of hives, managed and cared for by members of the local community.
“Conservation doesn’t work unless you engage people,” says Stuart. “If you do things in isolation, it just doesn’t have the same impact, and projects like this, getting people involved with the land, showing them how important it is to work with nature, I think it’s a really important part of what we do.”
Bees living beside the Tees Barrage produce their own brand of honey
And it’s not just bees buzzing around the barrage; our waters attract birds too, including dippers, mallards and kingfishers, a surefire sign that fish populations are flourishing.
Thanks to the sterling work of local ecologists, the Tees Barrage has become a haven for wildlife, supporting a wide variety of fish, mammals, birds, and insects.
If you’d like to help us keep it that way, why not join us for our annual seal survey from June? If you live locally and can spare an hour or two a week, you’ll get to see these beautiful creatures in their natural environment and help us preserve Tees wildlife for years to come.
