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05 June 2008
It will take 5-10 days to completely empty the dam due to technical difficulties as explained by the fisheries department. In the meantime organised groups, environmentalists and the general public are crying out for the ecosystem to be saved and this insanity to stop.
04 June 2008
The water from Yermasogia dam is being removed quickly in an effort to completely dry the dam before anybody can try to stop them. Somebody decided to remove all the water with the excuse that the water table underground has suffered damages due to over pumping during the last few years. There are only around 100 thousand tons of water left in the dam. What difference will this make to the underground water? The water being removed ends up in the sea anyway. How is this going to help? In the meantime they are drilling holes at the bottom of the dam to pump out water (see below). This is CRAZY!!! What are they trying to do? They are destroying an ecosystem that took 40 years to develop, in just 2 days. This is a crime against the people of this country. If the information we have is correct, by tomorrow afternoon all the water will have been removed and all life form KILLED including fish, crab, eels, etc...
03 June 2008
Almost 3 years ago we were trying to warn through this web site for the need to save water and for the waste that was taking place (click here). Nobody listened. Now we are facing disaster. The government is desperately trying to find water. It seems that they are willing to try everything. They are drilling holes at the bottom of Yermasogia dam (or what is left of it!!!). Have a look at the photos below and see desperation at its glory!!!
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In the meantime our dams are dying, the ecosystems have been destroyed and the fish are memories. We will be buying around 8 million tons of water from Greece to make it through the coming hot summer (equal to the amount wasted from Yermasogia dam in less that a year). This will cost around 40 million Euros that the people of this island will have to pay of course. So far so good. What the people do not know yet is that around 3 million tons of water will end up in keeping the 3 private golf clubs green. Not only that, they have an agreement with the government to pay only what would cost to get the water from the dams. And we get running water for 8 hours (during the night) every 48 hours. We cannot water our gardens, we cannot wash our cars, we are asked to save water and use the minimum amount possible. If this is not a crime then what is? Have a look at the photos below. See the mountains at the far end. This is what the ground really looks like in Cyprus. Do you see any green? Imagine the amount of water that is wasted to keep those huge areas green during the 8 months of hot dry Cyprus summer with temperatures exceeding 40o Celsius.
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By the way, these golf clubs even have private ponds and a private dam (built without a license), storing public water, which is illegal. Where is this place going to? Does anybody care?
21 May 2008
The Xyliatos village community council at a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture and other officials which took place a few days ago, demanded among other things, the re-opening of Xyliatos dam. The Minister, said that this is not possible due to the presence of the water snake. He mentioned the report from the German expert saying that the anglers kill the water snakes. Again, some people want for their own reasons to keep the dam closed and they misinformed the Minister. Did they mention to him that there is a great predator swimming in the dam called Largemouth Bass? I think not. They did not bother to inform the German expert, why should they inform the Minister?
The anglers do not kill the water snakes. Not when they are properly educated on the matter. The dam is closed for years and full of illegal anglers - the fish collectors that we see in all our dams destroying everything. Who is going to educate those people? Did anybody ever check if they kill the snakes or not? Since the closure of the dam, the number of the water snakes is reducing and maybe by now there are none left in the area. So why do they blame the legal anglers? The dam has been closed for years and the snakes disappeared. But, the officials still blame the legal anglers!!!
They keep a beautiful dam in the forest closed for the wrong reasons. They know that they are wrong. They just do not want to admit it.
07 May 2008
The tragic situation in our dams is leading to the complete extinction of the Largemouth Bass in Dhypotamos, Kalavasos and Lefkara dams. The extremely low water level along with the uncontrolled illegal angling (removing forage fish by the thousands) and the presence of the zander is affecting the survival of the Largemouth Bass. Small bass are killed by the anglers and the zander and big bass are starving to death and are being attacked by the bigger zander. This can lead to the complete elimination of the bass populations in these dams. The numbers of the bass have already been reduced dramatically.
Below you can see a big bass caught yesterday at Dhypotamos dam. The signs of starvation and disease are obvious. This fish weighted approximately 800gr when according to its length it should weigh around 1.0-1.2 kilos. It was released almost immediately so as to have a better chance to survive, but I honestly do not think it will make it through the summer. It is really a shame. Six months ago these fish were healthy and strong. Today they face extinction. Why?
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31 March 2008
Members of the Lania police department in Limassol have checked Kouris dam two days ago for illegal fishing. Many illegal anglers were reported. This is worth mentioning because the check was made at night and the access to the dam is very difficult due to the low water level. Also the distances that have to be covered are substantial. This however did not stop the police officers. We all have to congratulate them for their effort. Also during the last two days officers from the Lefkara police station have made checks at Lefkara and Dhypotamos dams for illegal fishing. At Lefkara dam illegal anglers were using a boat and fishing nets. The Lefkara police station officers also deserve our congratulations for their effort.
It is worth noting that on Sunday 23rd of March, the Fisheries department officials from the Limassol office, have checked for illegal fishing at Germasogeia dam and charged a large number of people while confiscating many rods.
We hope that this effort will continue and ask all legal anglers to report any illegal activity that comes into their attention. Maybe this way we will save what is left from our dams.
18 January 2008
This is the 4th consecutive dry year. It is now middle of January and still no rain. However, with proper planning, our dams could have survived. We said it many times. The drought is not to be blamed. People are. People who are responsible for the management and conservation of our dams. As if this was not enough, there are many foreigners from the ex-USSR countries killing hundreds of fish of any size, every day and night (illegal anglers!!!) and there is nobody there to stop them.
The fisheries department gives out a list, showing the dams and the fish that are supposed to be present in them. We show the same list on this website because there is no other available information. This list is probably far from the truth. Most of our big dams are almost destroyed and nobody really knows if and what fish are left in them.
DYING FISH AT MAVROKOLYMBOS DAM
29 November 2007
The water level at Mavrokolymbos dam is very low as in many other dams in Cyprus. As a result the shore is full of thousands of dead fish of all sizes. There is a horrific smell and you cannot get close to the shore. The place is also full of rubbish that some people leave (and we all know who they are - do we need to mention vodka, beer, wine, fire, fishing nets, camping, etc...). Again, the fisheries department is absent.
As we have always said, why does the water level need to drop to such low levels? It does not serve any real purpose. It does not solve the drinking or irrigation problems. In fact it actually creates other problems. Why don't the officials realise this? What is their problem? See the photos below. It is really a shame. Are we a European country after all? I think not.
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We have received many complaints regarding the current situation in our dams. Many anglers are so angry and disappointed, that they will NOT re-new their license next year. Can anybody blame them?
Thousands of fish have died and will die eventually in many of our dams. Lets hope that the officials will take a good look at these photos. It might help them see the disaster they created. This is not a joke. This is today's reality. WHY???
5 November 2007
It is now November and we are still waiting for the rain to come. The situation regarding our dams is tragic. Four big dams are already destroyed (Kalavasos, Dhypotamos, Yermasogia and Lefkara) and another one, Kouris dam, is in great danger. The water and fisheries departments are responsible for this destruction. The water level did not need to drop to such low levels in these dams. This has not solved the water shortage problem. The result was to kill thousands of fish and destroy the ecosystems in our dams. We, as a State have a legal responsibility against the European Union to protect our ecosystems and preserve the surface water quality. Instead, ecosystems that took many years to build have been lost and nothing is done to protect the water quality, as already at least three dams are polluted.
The fisheries department issued licences to a Russian club (around 25 people) to carry out a bass fishing tournament at three different dams last week and they did not even bother to show up at the dams during the tournament. This is how much they care.
Freshwater fish from our dams have appeared in restaurants and take-away shops although it is illegal. This means that somebody is supplying these shops with fish from the dams and the need for more fish will lead to more illegal methods of fishing. Professional fishing nets and traps are already used in our dams. Night fishing and fishing with many rods is common. In Yermasogia dam people are fishing during the night with the use of their car headlights. During weekends there are hundreds of people fishing day and night, using more than one rod, catching and killing huge numbers of tiny bass. And there is nobody there to stop them.
The fisheries department imposed restrictions including the number and sizes of fish, but for what? Illegal fishing is an everyday thing. The fisheries department is absent as always.
Kalavasos dam suffered a huge damage a few years ago and never recovered fully but this year it was completely destroyed. The presence of zander in the dam (something that we think the fisheries dept knew but preferred to keep it a secret for some reason) was another reason contributing to the slow recovery. There is a need for forage fish (something that we have been asking for years now) but again, who cares?
Dhypotamos dam on the other hand recovered fully about two years ago from the drought of 1998. It took seven years to recover and less than a year for the water and fisheries departments to destroy it fully!!!
Very low water level, fishing without a licence, fishing nets and traps, night fishing, fishing with more than one rod, garbage everywhere, pollution, absence of the fisheries department, selling of dam fish in take-away shops, camping at the dam banks, illegal stocking, jet-skis, speedboats, etc… This fully describes today’s freshwater fishing in Cyprus. Can it really get any worse? You would be surprised!
14 August 2007
We are going through the third consecutive dry year. Our dams are almost empty. Two years ago we were watching the water level dropping rapidly (after three successful winters which resulted in ALL our dams but one over spilling!!!) and the water being wasted. We then expressed our concern about the situation and the possible negative effect of water storage in the coming years. Nobody listened. Somehow and for some unknown reasons (or maybe not!) the officials continued to waste water. The result is what we are facing with today. They managed to throw away almost all the water from the over spilling for the first time in its history Kouris dam in only 2 years (storage today 11.6% - around 6% comes from Arminou dam which means that real storage would only be a bit less than 6%), Yermasogia dam faced its worst damage ever at the end of 2006 with devastating results, Kalavasos dam is destroyed (storage today 2.8%), Dhypotamos is very close to complete destruction (storage today 4.8%), and Lefkara (7.5%) and once again Yermasogia (9.6%) are next on the list.
There is one big question regarding Kalavasos dam at this moment. With a storage of only 485 thousand cubic meters of water what is the purpose of continuing to remove water? It will not solve our water shortage problem. The water left in the dam is so little that can only last for a few days if used. Then what? What are the officials going to do when the dam is empty? Where are they going to find the water needed? If they have a solution why don't they use it now? Removing any more water from Kalavasos dam is pointless. It will completely destroy the dam wildlife. All fish will die and for what? Doesn't the fisheries department see this? Do they care at all? Does any organised group care? Why doesn't anybody do something before it is too late?
Dhypotamos is next with a storage of only 746 thousand cubic meters. The problem here is going to be worse for the life underwater. Two competing species , two wild predators, zander and bass, are too close together and pray is right next to them. This means only one thing: DISASTER! Does anybody care?
I don't believe that we depend on the water in the above two dams to survive as a state. If this is the case then lets all make our will. So why don't the officials allow the fish and other wildlife in these dams to survive?
Do we need to mention the words "golf clubs" and "desalination factories" again? I think not !!!
WHERE IS THE FISHERIES DEPARTMENT? WHERE ARE THE SO CALLED ORGANISED GROUPS? WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO CARE FOR OUR NATURE AND WILDLIFE?
18 April 2007
We have always said that dams should not only be used for water storage but that they could also become an attraction area for families. The ministry of Agriculture (responsible for the dams) has however found an easy way out of the problem. PRIVATISATION. There was a meeting two days ago at the ministry to decide for further action on the subject and the Fisheries Department was NOT invited. The plan is to privatise the big dams for watersports, boats, camping etc but nothing was mentioned about fishing. There is a big question now regarding the future of freshwater fishing in our dams (those same dams that were built using our money). If the dams end up in private hands will fishing be allowed at all? If yes, at what cost and for whom? Will anglers be forced to release all the fish they catch? How many fish will they be allowed to catch? Will they pay for each fish they catch? Or will they pay per hour of fishing? Will they be forced to rent the equipment or pay extra if they bring their own rods? etc...etc... The average angler could be a nuisance to the owner of the dam. What if the dams will only be used for tournaments for clubs from other countries? Will freshwater fishing in Cyprus end up being the sport of the rich? Something similar happened with the golf clubs in Cyprus. Will the future of freshwater fishing be something similar? Privatisation could certainly kill freshwater fishing.
They talk about speedboats in the dams. Oil can easily contaminate our dams. Boats and jet skis should never be allowed. And just how is it possible to use the water for drinking and irrigation (thus the water level dropping by several meters) when there will be shops, marinas, etc at the dam shore? Or will the dam water not be used for these purposes any more?
What our dams need is better management by the appropriate government departments. NOT privatisation.
One last thing. It is about time some "organised" groups of people stop "working" for the future of freshwater fishing. The have done enough damage already!.
02 February 2007
Some time ago a friend asked me why I always write negative comments regarding fishing in Cyprus. Well, I would not be happier if I only wrote good things. The problem is however, there is nothing good to write. Today, we visited Lympia dam and what we saw (and smelled) was unbelievable. The whole area surrounding the dam smells like sewage, the colour of the water is black (and I mean literally BLACK) and the fish are dying. The dam banks are full of dead fish (catfish, tilapia, roach) and hundreds of fish are swimming on their side dying. The dam must be polluted. There is enough water in the dam to support life, and the lowest water temperature we measured was 10.3 degrees C. So, tilapia did not die due to the low temperature. They died because of some sort of pollution. Hundreds of Roach are dead or dying slowly and also some Catfish. We did not see any bass.
If you go to the fisheries department you can obtain a license to fish at Lympia dam!!! What dam??? Really what is the role of the fisheries department? Has anybody bothered to check this dam or any other dam? If you have a look further down this page, when we were writing about the end of Yermasogia dam nearly eight months ago (03/06/2006), the last comment was "Which dam will be next? We just have to wait and see." Well, we did not have to wait long. Only eight months. After Yermasogia dam, Lympia dam is also dying. We are going to repeat the comment. Lets wait and see the next dead dam on the list.
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Dead Tilapia |
Check the colour of the water |
Dead Catfish |
A Roach dying |
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Dead Roach |
Fish struggling to survive. Really sad moment watching them... |
Dead Roach in black water |
The water level at Lympia dam |
(We took some more pictures of dead and decaying fish but are too disturbing to show here.)
08 January 2007
The red spots on the fishes are possibly the result of some kind of blood-sucking parasites looking like thick (diameter is around 2mm) green-brown hairs (length is up to 5-6 cm). A couple of months ago the parasites were seen covering a drifting roach like hairs. The parasites were about 20 in number and the roach (rather big, it was around 100g) was almost dead. Then about a week ago some small drifting roaches and silver breams were observed, almost dead and covered with just few (4-5), rather short parasites (2-3cm in length). A dead tilapia of about 0.5 kg was also observed but it had no red spots. It seems that the parasites are attacking carp, bass, roach and silver breams. The bass although having quite a few red spots on them look quite healthy and active. On the other hand the parasite seems to kill the other species in the dam (except maybe tilapia).
The fisheries department failed to provide any information to the public. When issuing licenses for 2007, they DO NOT mention anything to the anglers. As if nothing is going on. They did not even bother to investigate the matter further.
By the way, Kalavasos dam is not mentioned at all on the leaflet given to the anglers showing which dams are open and which ones closed. Could this mean anything bad or it was just omitted by mistake?
15 January 2007
Kalavasos dam was not included in the leaflet by mistake. The leaflet was
reprinted and anybody renewing his/her license now, will get the revised
leaflet.
NEW LICENSE CONDITIONS FOR 2007
15 January 2007
The vice-president of the Cyprus Freshwater Angling Association (R. Constantinides) has officially informed us that their association had nothing to do with the new regulation regarding the fishing quota for bass and other species. Maybe it was requested by another association or club. There is a good possibility though, that the fisheries dept had the original idea of imposing this regulation, but for some reason they want to blame somebody else.
31 December 2006
The fisheries department decided to change some of the license conditions and add some more conditions for the reservoir fishing, in an attempt to show that they actually do something for the freshwater fishing in Cyprus. One of the new conditions is a fishing quota for Bass and other species. When I asked the fisheries department, in the presence of a friend, member of a fishing association, why they decided to impose restrictions on the number of fish caught per trip, they said "because you asked for it". Well, I did not ask for this, and the fisheries department would not listen to the opinion of an individual anyway. So, I believe that if it was actually requested by some people, it must have been by a fishing club or an association of some kind. The fisheries department officials did however mention something else. That this particular condition was added to stop 4 or 5 specific people from catching a lot of Bass.!!!!!!!!! (They called these people "pros"). They also said to me " Aren't 10 bass enough for you? Why catch more?". This is outrageous. I am not saying that 10 fish are not enough. What I am saying is that the condition was added for the wrong reasons. The fisheries department officials instead of trying to improve bass fishing, they try to restrict it. By not allowing bass fishing at all, would be a better way to save the bass.!!! So why don't they prohibit bass fishing once and for all? There are so many ways to improve and protect this sport and they chose the easiest one which will have no results at all. The condition states that nobody shall hold more that 10 bass during one day. This could mean of course that you can keep only the biggest 10 fish and throw away the smaller ones. What I am saying is simply that, this is NOT the way to improve bass fishing. We will certainly follow the rules as we always do even though we do not agree with some of them. But what about all those illegal anglers? They follow no rules. They don't even have a license. What is the role of the Fisheries department on that?
There are many ways to improve bass fishing. We have talked about them many times in this web side. These include the introduction of a good forage fish like Bluegill, the water quality testing (for plankton etc..), punishment for illegal fishing etc... The fisheries department wants to restrict 4-5 people from catching more than 10 fish, but they issue licenses without second thoughts to non-Cypriot, non-European clubs from Eastern countries to perform their bass fishing tournaments in our dams, killing hundreds of fish every time and throwing them in the garbage. The worst part of this, is that they allow these people to conduct their tournaments in March-April, during the spawning of bass. See the photos below. They were taken in March 2006.
The damage that these people do to our dams is huge. They kill pregnant bass before spawning, males protecting their young after spawning and generally big bass in bass sanctuary areas that we would not normally fish or even disturb for that matter. They are very experienced bass anglers and they virtually fish ALL dam areas without exceptions, catching many big bass in the range of 2-4 kilos each. They kill the fish they catch and only keep the 3 biggest ones to weigh (tournament limit) throwing away the rest, and when the day is over all fish are wasted in the garbage bin. And all that in the name of "Tournament". If you consider that around 20 people take part in these tournaments each day for at least 3 days in every tournament, then you can understand the damage caused. The fisheries department officials allow this massacre to take place, but instead they impose quota for local anglers. OUTRAGEOUS !!! I believe the Fisheries department officials should re-consider their role in the whole freshwater fishing situation.
As far as the other changes are concerned, I believe that there should not be any restrictions on Carp fishing as this species is abundant in our dams and that the minimum size for pikeperch should be at least 40cm as a 30cm pikeperch is just a baby!
Also keep in mind that every time you go fishing from now on, you will have to carry your identification card with you along with your fishing license.
For the new license conditions please click here.
