Fishways provide catchment‐scale improvements to common galaxias ( Galaxias maculatus ) upstream of a barrier in south‐eastern Australia

Abstract

The common occurrence of dams is a major threat to riverine fish communities globally and a common remediation technique for fragmented fish communities is fishway construction. Demonstrating the effectiveness of this technique on impacted species is required to rationalise or improve management practices. This study investigates the effects of the installation of a fishway complex on the catadromous common galaxias ( Galaxias maculatus ) population at a catchment scale. We used electrofishing in a before‐after‐control‐impact design to investigate the effects of the installation of a rock‐ramp and a vertical‐slot fishway complex on this species. This study demonstrated an increase in the relative abundance of common galaxias of 7.6–28.1 times and a shift to higher proportions of small fish in tributaries upstream of the fishway complex (as far as 90 km upstream). These findings provide strong evidence for the efficacy of the installation of fishways to increase the number of catadromous fishes in rivers where fish migrations have been blocked by dams.

Bibliographic Information