Always good to have your PhD (Impact & management of the invasive Zander - a piscivorous fish introduced to British Canals) inform national policy!

It was a long time ago, 20 years to be exact, since I completed a PhD at The University of Liverpool. I was based in the Jones Building which used to be part of the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behaviour.

My research was on the impact of Zander, an introduced piscivorous fish, on the ecology of freshwater canals. The work also included an assessment of management options and financial assessments. It is pleasing to see that the work I did in the 1990s is still being used to inform national policy of the Canal & River Trust. You can read a short summary of my Zander research here.

Looking back I think ecology was a good training ground for my career role in the NHS. The experience I had gave me a really good opportunity to gain a deep understanding of how systems work, the benefit of understanding the financial aspects of management options and to work with a great bunch of people! You can find out more about my health research role by clicking here or by looking at my other LinkedIn articles.

I will always be very grateful to the University of Liverpool (especially Drs Rick Leah, John Eaton, Mike Johnson, Ken O'Hara, Prof Brian Moss and Sally Johnson), British Waterways (now the Canal & River Trust) for their funding and support (Jonathan Briggs, John Ellis, Keith Fisher) in various forms over many years. And, of course, Dr John Cheverton one of my many fantastic teachers at Bradford Grammar School who introduced me to biology in the first place!

I also met a lot of people along they way and their help and support has been invaluable. A special mention must be made to the Environment Agency (for advice, long term data and help with electrofishing), to the Institute of Fisheries Management (to enable contact with many other like-minded folk) and to Sparsholt college (helping with field work). The experience gained was a major contributor to me becoming a member of the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management. I still use today a lot of what I learnt all those years ago - so thanks to each and everyone!

If you want to find out more about the Zander research you can do so via the following (hyperlinks not available for all) and there are some poor quality photographs at the end of the article (no smartphones or digital cameras then and we still saw the occasional dinosaur). You could also contact me via LinkedIn.

Smith, P.A (2006) Cost-effective survey of fish by the intensive netting of a linear canal in the Midlands (UK). CIWEM J., 20 71-78.

Smith, P.A (2003) A cost effective survey of fish occurring in a linear waterbody CIWEM J., 17 181-186.

Smith, P.A. (2002) The relationship between stock and catch and the effect of bait on catch as determined for a UK recreational catch and release fishery. Fish. Manage. Ecol. 9, 261–266.

Phillip Smith and Jonathan Briggs (1999) Zander - the hidden invader, British Wildlife:, 11:2-8, 1999.

Smith, P.A. (1998) A financial appraisal of management options for fisheries colonized by zander, an introduced piscivorous fish. Proceedings of the 1998 Institute of Fisheries Management Annual Conference, Cambridge. Not available on the web.

Smith, P.A. (1998) Impact and management of zander (Stizostedion luciperca (L.)) a piscivorous fish introduced to British coarse fisheries. The University of Liverpool 256pp. Not available on the web.

Smith, P. A., Leah, R. T. and Eaton, J. W. (1998) A review of the current knowledge on the introduction, ecology and management of zander in the UK. In "Stockings and introduction of fish". Edited by I. G. Cowx. Fishing News Books. Oxford. pp 209-224.

Smith, P. A., Leah, R. T. and Eaton, J. W. (1996) Removal of pikeperch (Stizostedion lucioperca L.) from a British Canal as a management technique to reduce impact on prey fish populations. Annales Zoologici Fennici 33: 537-546.

Philip A. Smith, Richard T. Leah and John W. Eaton (1996) Removal as an option for management of an introduced piscivorous fish — the zander in “Controlling Carp exploring the options for Australia” Proceedings of a Workshop 22-24 October 1996, Albury.

Some poor quality photographs

Electric fishing to assess abundance and distribution of Zander in the canal system - they occurred in low numbers with a patchy distribution so we had to survey long lengths of canal to find and catch them.

Netting a canal to determine abundance and distribution of fish other than Zander in the canal system - these occurred in high numbers and had an uneven distribution. A high number of samples were needed to statistically detect any difference in fish abundance between the Zander-populated and Zander-free sections of canal.

Analysis of Zander stomach contents to determine diet and predation on other fish. I examined the stomach contents of nearly 3,000 Zander and got used to identifying digested remains! Prey length could be reconstructed from the length of anatomical remains.