Sondes & Stoneflies

A chance to guddle in two burns with the Galloway Fisheries Trust, learning about indicators of freshwater health – what can we see and what can we measure. Fun for all the family.

Our watercourses reflect our custodianship of the land but how can we tell what’s going on.

In 2023 Galloway Glens bought a SONDE device for the Galloway Fisheries Trust so that they could collect data on things like temperature, pH, conductivity and turbidity. This will help them collect data over a long period of time, data that will be invaluable in helping us protect and improve our freshwater environment.

This digital approach to monitoring needs to be backed up with biological data so for that they will look at the invertebrate communities in the river bed. One of the groups they will be looking for are the Plecoptera , commonly called stoneflies. This ancient group of insects only thrives when they have clean well oxygenated water.

We will visit two watercourses on the River Dee with Galloway Fisheries Trust, one of which is thought to have issues with acidification and one which is thought to be fine and try and unravel the evidence.

Please bring a picnic and welly boots! Meeting at Parton Village Hall