Kampenhout (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Kampenhout urges urgent action as the Molenbeek stream runs dry, leaving fish in distress. Beaver tunnels are blamed for severe water drainage.
Fish are having problems since the water level is so low. Volunteers attempted to save a few of the fish this morning.
A concerned citizen of Kampenhout, Belgium, called Denise Vander Weyden (N-VA), a municipal councillor.
“That is why we are coming today to free those fish and we are going to try to put them in a pond elsewhere. It is distressing to see them like this. I do not know if we will be able to save all the fish.”
The reason behind the low water level in the Molenbeek is unknown to the volunteers, but Team Mayor Kris Leaerts is more knowledgeable.
“I don’t live far from there,”
says the mayor.
“The fish in the Molenbeek, that’s unfortunately a story that’s not new. In the upper reaches of the Molenbeek, beavers dig tunnels, along which the water of the stream flows away. Those beavers have recently done their best again.”
“The stream then overflows into the Reisembeek, causing the latter to be full of water and the Molenbeek to be virtually dry. We have contacted the Agency for Nature and Forests, and also the people from the province who manage the waterways, to find a solution for this. Reinforcing a bank in a nature reserve where beavers live is not self-evident,”
says Leaerts.
And so one piece of nature must be helped by pushing back another.
“It is somewhat contradictory. We want to combat fish mortality, but beavers are protected animals and you should also let them do their thing. We really need to put our heads together and find a structural solution for it. Now it is mopping with the tap turned off, instead of with the tap open,”
concludes the mayor.
What impact does the low water level have on local fish populations in Kampenhout?
Fish reproduction and young survival depend on adequate habitat, particularly vital spawning and nursery habitats in shallow littoral zones, which are diminished by decreasing water volume.
Fish suffer stress or die as a result of hypoxia or even anoxia, which is frequently caused by decreasing dissolved oxygen due to shallower water.
The faster warming of shallower water can be detrimental to cold-water fish species and disturb the refuge zones provided by thermal stratification.
Aquatic life is harmed by algal blooms, which reduce water clarity and further diminish oxygen levels when nutrients are concentrated in less water.
Fish struggle to survive as a result of these combined circumstances, which could cause distress and, if conditions worsen, catastrophic die-offs.
