Modern and historic pressures on Dartmoor: sheep grazing in the treeless upper East Dart, atop mine streaming tailings. Our perspective of 'natural' and 'wild' is set by our present baselines but can miss long-term changes that have eroded ecology.

October is flying by, catching up now the rivers season has closed. Starting to look through data from this year's survey season, challenging for us and the fish with the hot dry summer.

Day two of the @ifmfish.bsky.social conference in Bristol, nice to hear colleague Hannah presenting the big picture of what we're up to on the Teign.

Quite a day out: 43 miles running up the Exe to celebrate and connect with the story of Atlantic Salmon in this year's Salmon Run. A big thanks to all involved in organising and supporting the event and to everyone who donated towards WRT's work to support salmon restoration in the Exe.

Back to visit some of our fisheries habitat sites on the Exe, funded by NE Species Recovery. Great work delivered by Dartforest, increasing daylight penetration in a SSSI on Danes Brook. Alongside the benefits for fish, nice to see habitat creation for terrestrial species in the riparian corridor.

Full circle, having previously worked on development of eDNA assays for migratory fish, now great to see molecular ecology tools becoming a standard part of practical management.

Please do, along with this most importantly (which I forgot) or our wonderful volunteer team!

Trees in the ground on the Barle yesterday to restore and protect this valuable spawning site for Exe salmon. Working with @naturalengland.bsky.social and @exmoornp.bsky.social, great to see enthusiastic volunteers out to put theory into action. One of the best days yet for Westcountry Rivers Trust.