“The World Fish Migration Day (WFMD) is a one day global celebration to create awareness on the importance of open rivers and migratory fish. On WFMD organizations from around the world organize their own event around the common theme of “Connecting fish, rivers and people”. Many of these events are open to the public. By working together we create a greater driving force to raise awareness, share ideas and secure commitments.”
This is only the second WFMD but it has proven to be a very successful and growing scheme, which – we hope – will grow even bigger next year. More than 450 events in 61 countries around the world were arranged. 15 million people were reached on social media.
Like last year, the European anglers were much involved with the World Fish Migration Day, to raise awareness about the difficulties for the migrating fish species to fulfil their natural life cycle due to the barriers created in the rivers, such as weirs, dams, hydropower....
The official WFMD day was Saturday the 21st of May. Most events were run on this date but some were run on earlier dates, including our own Danube Salmon event. All WFMD 2016 events are listed
here. EAA is an official supporter of the WFMD 2016 on behalf of its 18 member organisations counting about 3 million affiliated anglers. In this regard EAA together with EFTTA (the European Fishing Tackle Trade Association) arranged an event at the European Parliament. The Director of the World Fish Migration Foundation, Mr Herman Wanningen spoke at the event. Read more about this European Parliament Recreational Fisheries Forum’s Danube event
here.
EAA’s Dutch member, Sportsvisserij Nederlands is one of the main sponsors of the WFMD. Several
events were run in The Netherlands with the participation of Sportsvisserij Nederlands.
Most of EAA’s members have arranged or cooperated in this year’s WFMD events. One example is this
event organised by Alleanza Pescatori Ricreativi (APR) in Ripafratta (province of Pisa) to raise awareness about the need to create fish passages in the river Serchio.
A
great video promoting the WFMD 2016 was broadcasted by National Geographic.
You can read more about the World Fish Migration Day
here.