Hydroscape-Group

05/06/2026

Great update from Immersed Angling

Negative comments don't mean anything to anyone. Trust us when we say that it's in our hands as anglers to make a difference and that real evidence wins every time over armchair commentary. Get it logged!

05/06/2026

Two new pieces this week, and we've released them as a pair because they argue two halves of the same question.

"Build it and they will come?" looks at whether habitat can solve cormorant predation. A sunken brushwood refuge can cut cormorant visits to a pond by three quarters, that's a real trial result, not a talking point. But the evidence also shows where refuges do nothing, and which fish they can't help at all.

"A capital idea?" follows the money. The biggest single funder of fishery habitat work in England isn't the body legally bound to do it. It's anglers, through the rod licence and the hours clubs put in. Maintaining fisheries is a statutory duty of the state. It's paid for by hobbyists who are glad to chip in, which is exactly why nobody stops to ask whether they should have to.

Read the first for the science, the second for the bill. Both are sourced to the Environment Agency's own figures and the law as it stands.

Build it and they will come? https://www.hydroscape-group.co.uk/build-it-and-they-will-come.html

A capital idea? https://www.hydroscape-group.co.uk/a-capital-idea.html

The evidence says habitat and control both have a job. It also says who should pay for the habitat, and it isn't anglers.

29/05/2026

Update from our meeting with Natural England and the Environment Agency last month

Natural England have confirmed they'll accept Hydroscape outputs as supporting evidence on A06 cormorant licence applications. The information we produce is, in their words, "likely to be sufficiently clear for Natural England to use to make a determination." They can't endorse one platform over another, but they've told us the data we generate is usable for the decisions they have to make. For a club preparing an application, that's what matters

The Environment Agency described Hydroscape as "a helpful tool for anyone experiencing predation" that "can effectively manage and present information in a useful way." They've asked whether the platform could be brought into wider predation advisory work. That conversation is ongoing

Both bodies gave us useful feedback on how the platform could be improved, and these changes have already been made

A few things to make clear:

Neither body formally endorses Hydroscape, and we wouldn't expect them to. Regulators don't endorse private platforms. What they do is tell you whether what you're producing is good enough to use. Both have. That's the answer we all wanted

Hydroscape is free for fisheries and clubs. The cormorant reporting form, the A06 evidence builder, the deterrent log, and the species library are all free, no account needed for the public tools and no subscription for the club-level ones. The cormorant funnel was always going to be free, because the people who most need it are the ones who can least afford to pay for it

If your club is preparing an A06 application and the paperwork is the bit that's stopping you, that's what we built the platform to fix

Great start, but let's get everyone using it.
hydroscape-group.co.uk

The Hydroscape team

25/05/2026

Ten EU countries have written to the European Commission asking for the cormorant to be made a huntable species under the Birds Directive. Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Croatia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania

The UK isn't part of this any more, but the population trends and the fishery pressures are the same here. Europe's cormorant population has gone from about 50,000 in the 1970s to over 2 million today. UK anglers and fishery managers will recognise the underlying problem

Whichever direction the EU decision goes, the same thing is true: better evidence makes better decisions possible. That's what Hydroscape is for

To prove the evidence, whichever side of the debate you sit, Hydroscape is free to use anywhere in the world and we already have over 10,000 reports logged. If Europe is asking the question, Hydroscape can answer it.
hydroscape-group.co.uk

Read the article at POLITICO:

Europe spent nearly half a century working to bring the aquatic avian species back from the brink of extinction. Now it wants it shot.

22/05/2026

Very proud to be contributing regular content to Catch Cult Mag

The specimen audience has always been very invested in the environment and ecosystem and It'll be great to share our thoughts and hear the thoughts of others

What do you consider to be the biggest threat to angling? Predation, pollution, overstocking of carp or anglers themselves? Please try and keep your comments respectful. The magazine has a focus on the above in each issue. With that in mind I am happy to introduce another author to the fold in Rob Harris who shares a very interesting article on something you will be very familiar with - Hydroscape-Group!

22/05/2026

Want to learn more about cormorants, the environment and fisheries? All facts and no padding

Articles, guides, case studies, all readable on your phone, on the bank, with no signal needed once you've opened it. No account, no paywall

The Cormorant Question. The Answer Is You. Definition of Madness. Don't Wait For Autumn. Seals in Freshwater. Plus everything else we've published. Open any of them, read offline, pick up where you left off next time you're out

It's called the HydroReader.
hydroscape-group.co.uk/library.html

19/05/2026

The Live Data Map shows what's being recorded across the UK in real time

Every dot is someone like you who took a minute to log what they saw. Birds, fish, otters, pollution events, the lot. All on one map

Have a look. Add yours.

Real-time cormorant and biodiversity distribution data across UK waterways. Crowd-sourced from verified reports.

17/05/2026

A great weekend on our home turf spreading awareness of the power of angling and wildlife reporting. Roll on next year! Nene Park, Peterborough

12/05/2026

The HydroLibrary is a free, searchable reference for anyone who spends time near water.

What's in it:

→ Over a thousand UK species, with photos, conservation status, and what you need to know
→ Water quality guides. What murky water, oil sheens, sewage fungus and algal blooms actually mean
→ Every UK freshwater authority with current hotline numbers
→ Plain-English explainers of SSSI, BNG, A06, the Wildlife and Countryside Act, and more
→ 22 languages. No login. Free forever.

Share it with anyone who walks, fishes, paddles, swims, or just likes being near water.

Knowing what you're looking at makes every walk better. And every record matters.

www.hydroscape-group.co.uk/hydrolibrary.html

1,004 species (UK-focused library with broad European overlap), 18 water quality guides, 22 habitat projects, 5 deterrent methods, and 22 authority profiles. Free, 22 languages.

04/05/2026

Performance is not action. Outrage is not evidence.

Watching a documentary about pollution is not activism. Scrolling angry replies to a sewage map is not activism. Sharing a post about a fish kill is not activism.

Environmental decisions in this country are made on evidence — and that evidence is built by people you'll almost never see. The riverfly volunteer wading the same stretch for nineteen years. The bailiff out in February at five in the morning. The fishery manager keeping twelve seasons of counts in a paper logbook because nobody made it possible to do it any other way.

If you've shared a post about pollution in the last twelve months, did you also submit one observation of water quality from your local stretch in the same period?

The fix is thirty seconds. One photograph. No account needed.

Stop watching. Start recording.

👉 https://hydroscape-group.co.uk/dirty-business