Severn trip reveals problems on rivers

Conservationists were today due to finish a 70-mile journey down the River Severn in Shropshire to highlight a modern problem – in a very traditional way.

An eight-strong crew from Shropshire Wildlife Trust has been putting the message across by paddling a traditional currach from Edgerley, near Melverley, since Friday. They were scheduled to finish at Hampton Loade this afternoon.

They hope their efforts will help highlight a range of ecologicial problems which have hit the Severn.

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The team has been posting regular updates on both Twitter and Facebook on the various issues the river faces.

The currach was a Neolithic craft used for taking to sea, unlike its older but more familiar cousin the coracle which was used on rivers like the Severn.

Wildlife trust volunteers, led by expert Peter Faulkener, took a week to build their currach and it has so far proved a reliable craft.

Team member Bryony Carter said: "We have managed about 20 miles a day and everything is going very well.

"We have had a great response and think the journey has proved a big success.

"We are not sure what to do with the currach once we have finished. We might keep it and make the river journey an annual event."

Fellow team member John Hughes, a senior manager with the trust, said the Severn was being put under increasing pressure and added: "We're taking more water out of it, but we're also putting more pollutants into it in terms of fertilizers and pesticides, outflows from septic tanks, things like that.

"We all use about 100 litres of water every day, and that's got to come from somewhere. So the river is under pressure and its wildlife is under pressure."

The journey is also marking the 50th anniversary of the trust, and the fact the Severn has gone through big changes since 1962.

Mr Hughes said, for example, that within the last 35 years eels, once common in the Severn, had declined by as much as 70 per cent.

The trust also wants to highlight other species whose populations have plummeted, such as otters, kingfishers, sand martins, lampreys and crayfish.