8 February 2021
Fishery consultant and fish farmer Ben Cornick of 5 Star Fisheries in Yorkshire has agreed to oversee the Wild Carp Trust’s fish-rearing programme.
Ben will be responsible for advising the Wild Carp Trust on egg and fry collection from the wild, he will then grow these young carp in a dedicated facility until they are large enough to be moved to our stock ponds or conservation pools.
Wild Carp Trust’s research programme
Ben will also be leading a research programme, observing the growth rates and behaviour of heritage carp fry compared to his cultivated strain. Specifically, we are interest to record these growth rates to assess the extent to which environmental factors (low food availability or competition for food during the fishes’ early growing years in a wild water) are responsible for the typically small size and lean shape of wildies.
Fennel Hudson, Chair of Trustees for the Wild Carp Trust, comments: “Ben is an expert in fish farming and fishery management; we couldn’t have a better consultant onboard to ensure the success of our fish-rearing programme. We’re also going to be fascinated by the findings of his research. Long has the fishery science community commented that there is no such thing as a ‘wildie’, merely an in-bred or stunted common carp. We usually consider these fish to be 5-10lb and rarely any bigger, yet we know of wildie waters such as Llyngwyn that were once famous for growing unusually large wildies – fish of 15-20lb. Great long powerhouse torpedoes that were definitely wildies in shape, but oh so big. Ben’s research could disprove conventional thought, or reinforce it. We really don’t mind either way. It’s the preservation of these old strains that’s important.”
