Rasa Ardys-Juška

Hope for Lithuania’s Waters

Rasa Ardys-Juška is the editor of BRIDGES.

Antanas and Kovas fish off the Banks of the Nemunas River in Vilnius, Lithuania. Photo: R. Ardys-Juška

Their typical summer day begins with Ponas Leonas waking his grandson Antanas at 5:30 in the morning and urging him to dress quickly, grab a quick sandwich, and be on their way. They walk about two miles to the banks of the Nemunas River in Vilnius. On their way, they dig up some worms and pay close attention to where other fishermen are rustling off. Fishing may not be as plentiful as in the past, but fish are caught and memorialized during colorful conversations at the end of the day. Ponas Leonas (Mr. Leon) enjoys these days with his grandson as he reminisces about the days of the first independence when fish were longer, fatter and more abundant.

Ponas Leonas and his grandson became our guides during our visit to Lietuva (Lithuania) the summer of 1998. My son Kovas, an avid fisherman from the age of two, cannot exist very long without fishing – be it by the sea or the rivers and lakes. So we were very happy when Ponas Leonas and Antanas volunteered to share with us their fishing place.

We started off one particular day rather late by any fisherman’s standards, 8:00 a.m. From first glance, the banks of the Nemunas River seem to be overgrown by shrubs and trees with no penetrable entrance. Yet the closer we walked to the river, we could ascertain more clearly the narrow footpaths made by generations of young and old fishermen alike.

As we moved through the coolness of the wooded area, Ponas Leonas talked of the Nemunas of the past. Since he was a child, he had fished in these river waters, as well as in other lakes throughout Lithuania. He recalled the long, plump ešeriai (perch), which had populated Nemunas. Other fish included pike, trout, and stickleback. Ponas Leonas also recalled that during the Soviet period the Nemunas would change color, from the easy-going light green to foamy pink or oily blue. Fishermen would slit open their catch and find parasites pouring out. During long periods, fish were veritably non-existent in the river waters.

In Western countries environmental protection is a way of life and of protecting natural resources. Granted, even before the 1990s Lithuania’s citizens were aware of industry destruction of their natural resources, but they were powerless and not prepared to act as their more sophisticated counterparts in the Western countries. Before his presidency, Valdas Adamkus was a high-ranking United States EPA official in the Midwest until his retirement and subsequent election to the presidency of Lietuva. He was instrumental in increasing awareness and introducing environmental control information and implementation. From there, united Baltic organizations have increased their work in protecting existing and disappearing species.

(from foreground) Ponas Leonas, Kovas and Antanas fish by the Nemunas River. Photo: R. Ardys-Juška

This type of mindset became official in Lithuania when the terms "Environment" and "Environmental Protection" were approved of in the Environment Protection Law passed in 1992. According to Lithuania’s Ministry of Environmental Protection, before the restoration of independence, all data collected by environmental specialists were secret. In 1992/1993 the Environmental Protection Department prepared a new Ecological Monitoring Program.

The Monitoring Program specialists observe fish populations in the Baltic Sea (herring and flounder); in the Kuršiu Marios (Kuršiu Lagoon); in lakes, rivers (roach and perch); and in streams (river trout and freshwater sculpin). The populations of roach, perch and flounder are monitored in conjunction with neighboring Baltic countries’ environmental monitoring systems. River trout and freshwater sculpin are particularly sensitive to pollution indices and best describe the river ecosystem.

The selected general biological and specific parameters for evaluation of these populations well define their condition and reflect changes in pollution. Parameters used are: fish length, weight, age, sex, abundance, age-class, growth, death rate, population age and dimensional structure. The work of monitoring is in itself awesome for a small country as Lithuania. There are over 30,000 rivers, rivulets, and canals between 250 meters to longer than 200 kilometers in length. These travel past industries, out of country and then back, or are used for organic/waste material discharge containment.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection states that river pollution remains the most acute ecological problem presently. The city of Kaunas, with a population of over half a million, still has no wastewater treatment plant. The untreated wastewater is dumped directly into the Nemunas or Neris Rivers. Even though the recent decline of industry and reduced use of chemicals in agriculture have helped to decrease water pollution, construction of a wastewater treatment plant in Kaunas and biological waste water treatment facilities in Vilnius, Šiauliai, and Klaipeda would help reduce organic pollution by 70 percent.

According to the Ministry, today’s Lithuanian waters contain approximately 88 fish species: 27 are marine fish, 52 are settled freshwater fish, and nine are migratory fish species. In the Baltic Sea, besides the marine fish, there live 11 migratory species and about 15 freshwater species. All of which depend on proper pollution controls to be able to exist and flourish in Lithuania’s waters.

In addition to the fish species being monitored by the Lithuanian Ecological Program, the Baltic Sea is home to Baltic herring, Baltic sprat, cod, river flounder, turbot, and migrating European smelt, vimba, sea trout, and Atlantic salmon. The Baltic shelf near Lithuania is an important spawning site for herring and turbot, as well as a feeding place for migratory species. Changes that occur in this location correspond closely to changes over the whole Baltic Sea.

In the Kuršiu Marios, 50 to 55 different fish species are found, including bream, roach, pike-perch, European smelt, river perch, sticklebacks, and ruff. From the 1920s to the present, commercial fish resources have declined by more than two times mainly due to the reduction in migratory fish resources. The migratory species dominated the community between 1926 and 1938. By 1947 to 1965 the community was dominated by settled fish like eel, vimba, bream, roach, and stander. Later, between 1970 to 1990, the community structure changed again with the stickleback dominating the migratory fish group, and the roach and bream dominating the settled fish group. Recent Ministry of Environmental Protection data shows that immigration of salmon and vimba in to the Marios and the Nemunas basin is gradually increasing.

The Lithuanian Ecological Monitoring Program reports that the largest group of fish dominating Lithuanian lakes and reservoirs include perch, pike, roach, tench, bream, rudd, ruff, bleak, crucean carp, and silver bream. While, small rivers (small streams, streams, upper reaches of rivers) are homes to stone-loach, the three-spined stickleback, minnows, trout, sculpins, gudgeon, roach, and bleak. The middle-sized rivers contain in addition to the previous fish species, the pike, dace and chub. Larger rivers include all the different populations and the bream and white bream.

Although the research shows that the different fish communities are increasing in size and occurrence, little of that was seen when Ponas Leonas, his grandson, my son, and I visited the banks of Nemunas. But again, there are good days and bad days when fishing takes a little extra effort. The bait, worms, were sufficient to catch small perch. Bait and tackle stores in Vilnius offered an array of European and Japanese tackle brands used here in the States at lower prices. A small, long, oval-shaped wooden painted bobber was an excellent find. These are rarely found in the U.S.

On our trip to Trakai, fishing was a little more satisfying. The lake surrounding the medieval castle was noticeably more alive. Several times the boys were successful with their catches. They used the simple painted bobbers and worms to land a few four to five-inch perch, which glistened bright yellow in the sun. At one point, Kovas caught a small stickleback – a fish that I had never seen before.

There were no "keepers", but the adventure of fishing in different waters was more than thrilling for my son. Kovas has resolved to repeat this trip, but expand it to include other lakes and rivers throughout Lithuania. The park systems (see next article) offer beautiful views, hiking paths, and water to swim in, sail and row on, and, naturally dip your fishing line in during the warm summer months. These are definitely on his list the next time we fly to Lithuania.