Fishing weir
A fishing weir, fish weir, fishgarth
History
The English word 'weir' comes from the Anglo-Saxon wer, one meaning of which is a device to trap fish.
In medieval Europe, large fishing weir structures were constructed from wood posts and wattle fences. V-shaped structures in rivers could be as long as 60 m (200 ft) and worked by directing fish towards fish traps or nets. Such weirs were frequently the cause of disputes between various classes of river users and tenants of neighbouring land. Basket weir fish traps are shown in medieval illustrations and surviving examples have been found. Basket weirs are about 2 m (6.6 ft) long and comprise two wicker cones, one inside the other—easy for fish to get into but difficult to escape.[6]
In September 2014 researchers from University of Victoria investigated what may turn out to be a 14,000-year-old fish weir in 120 ft (37 m) of water off the coast of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia.[7]
Great Britain
In Great Britain the traditional form was one or more rock weirs constructed in tidal races or on a sandy beach, with a small gap that could be blocked by wattle fences when the tide turned to flow out again.
Wales
Surviving examples, but no longer in use, can be seen in the
England
Fish weirs were an obstacle to shipping and a threat to fish stocks, for which reasons over the course of history several attempts were made to control their proliferation. The Magna Carta of 1215 includes a clause embodying the barons' demands for the removal of the king's weirs and others:
All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast.[11]
A statute was passed during the reign of King
All weirs noisome to the passage of ships or boats to the hurt of passages or ways and causeys (i.e. causeways) shall be pulled down and those that be occasion of drowning of any lands or pastures by stopping of waters and also those that are the destruction of the increase of fish, by the discretion of the commissioners, so that if any of the before-mentioned depend or may grow by reason of the same weir then there is no redemption but to pull them down, although the same weirs have stood since 500 years before the Conquest.
The king did not exempt himself from the regulation and by the destruction of royal weirs lost 500
North America
In Virginia, the Native Americans built V-shaped stone weirs in the
At the falls of the Rivers, where the Water is shallow, and the Current strong, the Indians use another kind of Weir thus made. They make a Dam of loose stone where of there is plenty on hand, quite across the River, leaving One, Two or more Spaces or Tunnels, for the water to pass thro': at the Mouth of which they set a Pot of Reeds, Wove in form of a Cone, whose Base is about Three Foot, and in Perpendicular Ten, into which the Swiftness of the Current carries the Fish, and wedges them in fast, that they cannot possibly return.[16]
This practice was taken up by the early settlers but the Maryland General Assembly ordered the weirs to be destroyed on the Potomac in 1768. Between 1768 and 1828 considerable efforts were made to destroy fish weirs that were an obstruction to navigation and from the mid-1800s, those that were assumed to be detrimental to sports fishing.[16]
In the Back Bay area of Boston, Massachusetts, wooden stake remains of the Boylston Street Fishweir have been documented during excavations for subway tunnels and building foundations. The Boylston Street Fishweir was actually a series of fish weirs built and maintained near the tidal shoreline between 3,700 and 5,200 years ago.
Natives in
The Cree of the Hudson Bay Lowlands used weirs consisting of a fence of poles and a trap across fast flowing rivers. The fish were channelled by the poles up a ramp and into a box-like structure made of poles lashed together. The top of the ramp remained below the surface of the water but slightly above the top of the box so that the flow of the water and the overhang of the ramp stopped the fish from escaping from the box. The fish were then scooped out of the box with a dip net.[17]
South America
A large series of fish weirs, canals and artificial islands was built by an unknown pre-Columbian culture in the Baures region of Bolivia, part of the Llanos de Moxos.[18] These earthworks cover over 500 square kilometres (190 sq mi), and appear to have supported a large and dense population around 3000 BCE.[19] Stone fish weirs were in use 6,000 years ago in Chiloé Island off the coast of Chile.[20]
Asia and Oceania
Taiwan had the world's largest tidal weirs that trap fish at low tide and were in use until the 1950s. Yap in the western pacific has the longest continual use of fish weirs made of stones since before European contact. [21]
Gallery
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19th-century fishing weir used to trap eels on the Danish coast
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The Martinsville Fish Dam Virginia, an historic Native American Indian fishing weir built with rocks
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Remains of an ancient stone fishing weir in the tidal Menai Strait in Wales
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Double Heart fishing weir in Penghu, Taiwan
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Fishing weir, Penghu County
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Fishing weir on the rapidly flowing Mogami River in Japan
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Fishing weirs using baskets at a river waterfall, Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Ancient V-shaped fishing weir at Countisbury Cove, Somerset
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ModernOosterschelde near Bergen op Zoomin the Netherlands (aerial view)
See also
References
- ^ "Fishgarth". Merriam Webster online. Merriam Webster Inc. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
- ^ "The British Salmon Fisheries". Fishing Excerpts, Volume 3 (published June 1861). January 6, 2009. p. 752 – via Google Books.
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ignored (help) - ^ a b Jecock, Marcus. "River Fisheries and Coastal Fish Weirs" (PDF). Introductions to Heritage Assets. English heritage. Retrieved 3 July 2014.
- S2CID 145339570.
- ISBN 9783110879902.
- ^ Shooting and Fishing the Trent Archived 2007-01-25 at the Wayback Machine, ancient fish traps.
- ^ "Canada's Oldest Archaeological find unearthed on Haida Gwaii". Global T.V. Retrieved 24 September 2014./
- ^ Anon. "Ynys Gorad Goch". Menai Heritage. Menai Bridge Community Heritage Trust. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
- ^ Reid, Ian (2001): "Rhos-on-Sea Heritage Trail". BBC Wales North West website retrieved 7 August 2007.
- ^ Anon. "Traeth Lligwy Fish Weir". Ancient monument. Retrieved 24 February 2018.
- ^ The Text of Magna Carta, see paragraph 33.
- ^ Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, (ed.) The Lisle Letters, 6 vols, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1981, vol.2, p.622, quoting Luders, A., Statutes of the Realm, vol.2, 1810–28, pp.439–42
- ^ Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, (ed.) The Lisle Letters, 6 vols, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1981, vol.2, p.628
- ^ Byrne, Muriel St. Clare, (ed.) The Lisle Letters, 6 vols, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1981, vol.2, pp.623-627
- ^ Byrne, 1981, 6 vols., the matter is referred to in all 6 vols
- ^ ISBN 978-1438968490.
- ISBN 9780887553462.
- ^ Erickson, Clark (2000): "An artificial landscape-scale fishery in the Bolivian Amazon". Nature, 408(6809):190–193
- ^ Erickson, Clark (2000b): "AN ARTIFICIAL LANDSCAPE-SCALE FISHERY IN THE BOLIVIAN AMAZON" Archived 2008-01-17 at the Wayback Machine University of Pennsylvania website retrieved 12 Oct. 2007
- ^ Ramirez-Aliaga, Jose Miguel (2011). "The Mapuche Connection". In Terry L. Jones; et al. (eds.). Polynesians in America: Pre-Columbian Contacts with the New World. AltaMira Press. p. 107.
- ^ Billock, Jennifer (13 September 2017). "These Massive Land Art Constructions Are Actually Ancient Fishing Weirs". Smithsonian. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
External links
- Prehistoric Fishweirs in Eastern North America – master's thesis on fish weirs