Our work together as a community is more important than ever as the new Living Planet Index for Migratory Freshwater Fish found an average decline of 76% in monitored fish populations! Let’s continue to work together to raise awareness and take action to make a change for migratory fish. One great way to do this is to join together on World Fish Migration Day!
World Fish Migration Day 2020 was postponed to October 24th, however this year we decided to be totally flexible and we accept event celebrations from May 16th to the end of October.
There have been already fantastic events in June, July and August! For example:
- A great students’ presentation of freshwater fish in Morocco at the Sultan Moulay Slimane University: World Fish Migration Day 2020
- Release in the Danube with 11,000 baby beluga sturgeon done by WWF Bulgaria: Beluga sturgeons restocking in the Danube River
- Virtual screening of documentary, discussion of the film and the migratory fish and rivers situation in Maine (USA): LOVE FLOWS film screening & Discussion – Virtual event
- In Portugal local communities will kayak on Oct 24th at the Tagus River to defend their river from more dam construction. Event organizers sent a special message to all of us in a recent interview “We call on all citizens of the world to come together to defend the quality and quantity of water in their rivers and streams” you can read the full interview HERE.
A few important things:
As we know it is not easy this year to celebrate an event, we strongly encourage you to switch to another viable activity, for example:
- Hosting a virtual event (webinar, documentary screening, round table etc.), we have created a guideline to help you not to forget any step. You can find it HERE.
- Gather a small group of friends/students/colleagues (3-5 people) to walk along your river and track the barriers in it. You can do this through a free APP we created thanks to AMBER project. Click HERE and you will be able to watch a 1.5min video on how it works and a map with barriers already tracked and submitted!
- We made a list of documentaries which you are welcome to screen. If you have other river/fish documentary suggestions please let us know!