Tommy McDermott
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tmactrex.bsky.social
Tommy McDermott
@tmactrex.bsky.social
Ecologist. Bit of a nerd for river habitat.
🇮🇪 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
Let’s talk fixing rivers
That’s a wrap for Trex Ecology’s efishing 2025. Kit disinfected and drying in the Hebridean sunshine. I’m looking forward to not seeing a net for a while!
September 19, 2025 at 9:17 AM
“Wild salmon can rally public support for ecosystem protection and link place-based conservation efforts to global biodiversity and climate benefits..”

True of our salmonids too!

academic.oup.com/fisheries/ad...
Strongholds for Pacific salmon: A proactive conservation strategy for ecosystem health, food security, biodiversity, and climate resilience
ABSTRACT. Nested within the linked global crises of biodiversity loss and climate change are threats to cultural and ecological keystones such as Pacific s
academic.oup.com
September 2, 2025 at 7:30 AM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
'The findings add weight to a growing body of evidence that beavers may be acting as ecosystem engineers, reshaping waterways in ways that benefit not just their own survival, but that of entire landscapes.'
How Canada's buck-toothed national emblem could help fight wildfires | CBC News
New research out of the western U.S. suggests dams and ponds built by beavers can slow floods, store water and even create green firebreaks in wildfire-prone landscapes.
www.cbc.ca
August 31, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
New contribution to the #JFB Special Issue on telemetry: Advances in telemetry approaches and technologies applied to fish ecology and management #AcousticTelemetry #FishTracking #MarineResearch doi.org/10.1111/jfb.15790
doi.org
August 31, 2025 at 7:27 AM
We’re looking to hire a seasonal field assistant at Trex Ecology. Job description is attached and get in touch if you have any questions! Please share too!
July 21, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
Researchers identify five steps to successful nature restoration - the need for policy coherence & adequate financial support to make Nature Restoration happen is clear yet the Commission have proposed an MFF/CAP that seem to deliver neither
www.google.com/amp/s/phys.o...
Researchers identify five steps to successful nature restoration
Many European ecosystems—whether it's forests, rivers, fields, or meadows—are in poor condition. Despite all conservation efforts, biodiversity continues to decline. However, experts are hopeful that ...
share.google
July 19, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
Is it hot right now in the UK?

New interactive website allowing anyone to explore live temperatures hour-by-hour across the UK, and whether they are cool, warm or hot relative to normal.

istheukhotrightnow.com

Built by @roostweather.bsky.social.
May 30, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
NFU says Land Use Framework “needs to give food production same priority as delivering environmental targets”

Great - so instead of devoting 70% of English land to intensive agriculture & just 3% for nature, can we now make it 50-50?

Or, y’know, just meet 30x30

www.nfuonline.com/updates-and-...
NFU publishes response to Land Use Framework consultation
The NFU has warned that farmers’ ability to continue producing food for the nation could be put at risk by the new Land Use Framework, further putting the government’s commitment to treat food securit...
www.nfuonline.com
April 25, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
Since we’re in a golden age of new Star Wars tv shows, I’ll again pitch “David Attenborough style nature documentaries but of fictional Star Wars creatures.”

No empire. No Jedi. Like, what the Jedi would watch on tv to relax after a stressful mission.
a black and white bird is standing in the grass
ALT: a black and white bird is standing in the grass
media.tenor.com
April 24, 2025 at 10:54 AM
The size of this beast!!🤯
April 3, 2025 at 7:46 AM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
"Beavers are truly an agent of disturbance: they are in that river corridor...disturbing it + making a whole variety of...habitat...they're really building that complex food web from the bottom up."

@emilyfairfax.bsky.social on beavers, biodiversity, wildfire & drought:

westgov.org/news/article...
Leave it to Beaver: How Nature’s Engineers are Helping Us Mitigate Disasters
The history of the West has always been defined by water. Long before settlers arrived, Indigenous peoples designed complex water management systems to cultivate the arid land. In the 19th and 20th ce...
westgov.org
March 29, 2025 at 12:43 PM
It’s not only rivers that flow!! Amazing day in the Angus Munros.
March 1, 2025 at 6:52 PM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
Spring is coming and wild shopping trolleys are returning upriver to spawn before dying. 🎶It's the circle of life🎶
February 6, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Well that was a “tyring” day….
Mapping fish habitats on the Western Isles. I love working on these rivers!
February 4, 2025 at 5:30 PM
What this guy says…
Prominent science and media figures continue to actively post on X, hiding behind the lofty precept of "impartiality". But what if taking moral stands is a *necessary condition* for the survival of organized civilization, or a livable planet?
February 2, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
This is definitely one of the best parts of my job - marking up potential restorations options at scale. That joyous bit before all the barriers (pun intended) to fixing our rivers are forced onto such programmes
January 30, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
We figured out how to measure streamflow from timelapse images taken by an inexpensive, off-the-shelf trail camera, thus making hydrologic monitoring something pretty much any one can do, any where. usgs.gov/apps/ecoshed...
January 29, 2025 at 4:34 AM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
Our last paper on the behavioural ecology of the Arctic charr is out in Animal Behaviour. Here, we led an investigation on the development of a behavioural trait (boldness) in relation to environmental complexity, in five Arctic charr ecotypes.

doi.org/10.1016/j.an...
January 28, 2025 at 5:22 PM
This is a good read
Do you want to learn about the impacts of the M9 Cascadia subduction #earthquake that struck at 9 p.m. on this night, 325 years ago? Strong shaking, a tsunami and landslides as described in Indigenous oral traditions from #VancouverIsland to #California.
hakaimagazine.com/features/gre...
⚒️🧪
The Great Quake and the Great Drowning | Hakai Magazine
Mega-quakes have periodically rocked North America’s Pacific Northwest. Indigenous people told terrifying stories about the devastation but refused to leave.
hakaimagazine.com
January 26, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Go work with Ross doing cool fish things!
January 25, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
A really interesting read ..

Modelled marine migrations of Atlantic salmon post-smolts from Irish and Scottish rivers vary interannually with local currents and salinity, ICES Journal of Marine Science, 2024;, fsae185, doi.org/10.1093/ices...
Modelled marine migrations of Atlantic salmon post-smolts from Irish and Scottish rivers vary interannually with local currents and salinity
Abstract. Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) populations have suffered declines across their range in recent decades, largely attributed to decreasing marine su
doi.org
December 23, 2024 at 7:17 PM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
UK Gov has announced intention to bring forward "complete ban on bee-killing pesticides". This is great news & requires a big thank you to our campaigners!

But as @craigbennett3.bsky.social says"it must not be undermined by granting emergency use of neoicotinoids" wildlifetrusts.org/news/deadly-...
December 21, 2024 at 11:29 AM
Reposted by Tommy McDermott
In ecological theory this assumption dates back to the ecologist Clements who proposed that there is a 'climax' state that the vegetation in any particular location will reach. Most ecologists now reject this simplification but it nevertheless persists. 2/6 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederi...
December 19, 2024 at 8:58 AM