Today marks World Fish Migration Day
World Fish Migration Day has been developed to improve the publics understanding of migratory fish and their needs. The WFMD is celebrated on the 24 May 2014 around the world. Raising awareness, sharing ideas, helping develop commitments and building communities around different basins around the world are essential aspects of fish passage and river restoration issues.
The World Fish Migration Day 2014 calls attention to restore the connections worldwide between rivers and the sea to create safe migration routes for fish. Free migration of fish is necessary to achieve healthy fish stocks and productive rivers. Many species, like salmon, trout, dorado, shad, giant catfish, lamprey, sturgeon and eel, migrate between the sea and the rivers. These species are particularly threatened by barriers such as weirs, dams and sluices, built for water management, hydropower and land drainage. In many places globally, like the Mekong River, people rely on migratory fish as their primary source of protein. Water and resource managers around the world are striving to find ways to improve migration possibilities for fish in and out of rivers, and deltas and the oceans, all of which they need to survive.