Key migratory fish species travel hundreds of kilometers along the Mekong River, including through several active and planned hydropower dam projects in Laos, a recent Researchers outfitted hundreds of fish with tracking tags known as passive integrated transponders (PIT) before releasing them in the Laotian capital, Vientiane. Aimed at developing a better, data-driven understanding of fish migrations in the Mekong, the resulting study, published this year, also found empirical evidence that at least some fish were able to make use of the fish ladder at the controversial Xayaburi Dam in northern Laos, a pathway previously considered untested. But of the hundreds of fish tagged, only five made it up the ladder. The study called for continued research to better understand “the migration patterns of fish in the face of upcoming developments” and cautioned that government plans to build yet more dams on the mainstream of the Mekong may turn this already treacherous fish migration into an impossible odyssey. “It is highly likely that [key migratory species] will be blocked from continuing long distance migrations, and subsequently completing their life-cycles, if planned [hydropower projects] are constructed without suitable fish passage measures,” the study says. A fisherman untangles his catch from the Mekong River on the Thai-Lao border by Chiang Saen. Image by Anton L. Delgado. Over more than a month in 2022, fishers in Vientiane captured hundreds of fish for the study. More than 230 individual fish were tagged and released, most of them gold tinfoil barb (Hypsibarbus malcolmi) and sharp-nosed…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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