Not
so very long ago crucians could be found in almost every pond throughout much
of England. However, a lot can change in a short space of time and now their
numbers are in a steep decline. Unless we take strong action to halt this, they
will soon disappear from the few waters they still exist in.
While
I’d always believed that crucians are indigenous to the UK, DNA testing
undertaken at Hull University suggests that they have probably only been in the
country for between 500 to 600 years. It is possible they were introduced as an
ornamental species but in this relatively short space of time, this beautiful
little fish managed to assert such a position in our affections that it has
become as quintessentially English as cricket on the village green. Almost
every English angler over the age of 40 or 50 will have fond memories of
catching crucians from idyllic lakes and ponds in many parts of England in his
or her
childhood. Yet, today, most
younger anglers struggle to recognise a true crucian as is evident by the
number of photographs of brown goldfish posted on social media sites that have
been mistakenly identified as crucians.
There
are various factors leading to the demise of crucians. They are a hardy little
fish that can thrive in farm ponds that present poorly oxygenated conditions
that would defeat most other species. Back in the days when anglers freely
moved fish from one water to another, these little ponds provided a major
source of small crucians to stock into larger fishing lakes. But today most of
our ponds have fallen into neglect, becoming overgrown with trees and ended up
so stagnant that they cannot support fish. Others have dried up in drought
weather conditions, been ploughed over or backfilled for land development.
Secondly,
and something that anglers alone must take the blame for, is the relentless
stocking of king carp into every drop of available water. Unfortunately for
true crucians, their sexual habits may be a bit louche. They will happily
interbreed with other species of carp to the extent that they crossbreed
themselves out of existence. While there are a few waters where crucians and
king carp populations manage to coexist, these are vastly outnumbered by the
number of waters where crucians have disappeared altogether.
A
third reason for their decline has been their crossbreeding with the brown
goldfish Carassius auratus, the
presence of which can mostly be directly attributed to dodgy fish farms passing
off brown goldfish as true crucians to unsuspecting fisheries. To the untrained
eye, brown goldfish and crucians can look remarkably similar. In crucian waters
that are stocked with goldfish, the fate of the crucians is doomed!
If
the situation is bad in England, in mainland Europe they’re really up against
it due to the presence of a foreign invader called the gibel or Prussian carp Carassius
gibelio. Gibel carp are a crucian’s nightmare. They look similar to crucians
and will happily jump into bed with them. This liaison is proving the kiss of
death to European crucians. We should be extremely grateful that, for the
moment at least, we do not have gibel carp in the UK. One look at the German
top 50 crucian list reveals that all but two of these fish are some form of
hybrid. This underlines the importance of conserving what is left of our
crucians in England, for it may well be their last European stronghold.
However, not only do we need to preserve the few crucian waters we have, we
also need to start creating bespoke crucian fisheries to help take the strain (and
the pure strain at that, pardon the pun).
One
doesn’t need to look far back in angling history to find angling writers
undervaluing crucians by referring to them as being “jolly little fellows” or
suchlike, as if they were some kind of comical lesser species compared to king
carp. Of course specimen carp fishing was in its infancy in those days, with
king carp waters still few and far between. Since then, however, specimen,
pleasure and match fishing for carp has taken over angling, with stocking more
and more king carp becoming angling’s answer to just about everything. In the
process we have tragically overlooked the fact that biggest does not
necessarily equate to being best. Fishing for crucians has a charm and magic
entirely of its own, but as the saying goes, “You never miss your water until
your well runs dry!”
Last
but not least, crucians are extremely vulnerable to being predated upon. Ask
any hard-bitten pike angler of old and they will confirm what good live baits
crucians were, back in the days when there were plenty of ponds to plunder.
Whatever it is that makes them so attractive to predators, it isn’t unusual to
see entire stocks of them slowly disappear due to predation by pike. We often
find waters where a few adult crucians reach specimen proportions, before dying
out altogether. Forward thinking fisheries can get around this problem by
creating a crucian nursery pond containing no other species. In these nursery
ponds they can be left to breed as prolifically as only crucians can, before
being cropped and transferred into the main fishery once big enough to stand a
chance against predators. Incredibly, crucians can actually change their body
shape over time as a defence mechanism, by growing a higher back to present a
more awkward mouthful for predators to swallow. Crucians found in Scandinavia
and parts of the Baltic Sea often exhibit exceptionally high backs for this
reason.
On
the 28th May 2014 the National Crucian Conservation Project (NCCP) was
officially launched at the Angling Trust’s Coarse Fish Conference in Reading.
Since then, the project has moved forward at great pace. Its objectives include
the creation of a regional network of growing-on centres to increase the
availability of crucians large enough to withstand predation when stocked into
new waters. The creation of a ‘pure’ crucian accreditation scheme that
fisheries and fish farms can apply to be part of is also envisaged. A crucian
ID guide is being published, alongside fact-sheets on creating and managing
crucian waters. Eventually courses and events will be run for fishery owners
and managers. The angling community has responded enthusiastically, with a
growing number of crucian fishery projects being started throughout the country .
To
compliment the NCCP — and with social media being such an important method of
networking in these digital times— the Association of Crucian Anglers (ACA) was
set up as a Facebook Group. The aim of the ACA is to provide a means for
anglers and fisheries to support the NCCP at a ground roots level. It is a
closed group, where membership is either by invitation or has to be applied
for. This protects the group from being swamped (and watered down) by serial
Facebook group joiners with only a limited interest in crucians. But the door
is wide open to anyone that wants to get involved. In 2014 the group held its
first fish-ins at various waters in order to assess the condition of their
crucian stocks, and this will continue. The group also set about putting
together a directory of crucian waters. This quickly grew into a long list
which at first glance gave the impression that crucians are still widespread
but many of these fisheries turned out to be anything but true crucian waters,
with the double threat of brown goldfish and king carp especially prevalent. Of course there may
be true crucians in some of these waters but being crowded out by hybrids and
goldfish they have are unlikely to thrive and breed.
More
than anything else, the joint efforts of the NCCP and ACA has succeeded in
identifying the huge affection many anglers have for crucians. Hopefully now we
can now harness that affection and get it working on building a brighter future
for the species. Who knows, eventually we might even start returning angling to
a place where youngsters can once again discover the joys of catching beautiful
crucians on the float in the margins, rather than their first steps in angling
being spent behind matching rods and bolt-rigs without ever learning the basic
skills!
Chris Turnbull ACA. NCCP
