Visbestandopnames op het Boudewijnkanaal (2006)

We surveyed five locations of the Bouwdewijn canal on 11 and 13 September 2006 (Table 1 and Map). The canal connects the port of Zeebrugge with the one in Brugge. It contains olygohaline water (60-90%). Fish assemblage data were obtained by placing fyke nets (two per site for a period of two days) and gill nets (Table 2). Table 3 gives the recorded parameters. Fish data include species, individual total length and weight (Tables 4 till 7).

We collected 12 species: perch, eel, flounder, thin-lipped mullet, brill, herring, sand smelt, pouting, sole, whiting, sea bass and black goby. We found on each site eel and sea bass. These species were collected also in highest abundance. Species diversity is 5.2 in average. With fykes we caught most in Brugge and least§ in Zeebrugge. A very intensive campaign was performed over a one year period in 1994-1995. Even though more species were captured we find that when we compare results obtained with equal methodologies and during the same season that the fish assemblages have not changed or only slightly. We have not yet developed a fish-based assessment tool for that type of water but we can state that the catch results varied between small and very good catches.