Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:57 pm on 28 June 2017.
Thank you. Well, this is an issue that certainly has been on my desk over the past year. I’ve had meetings with Lee Waters and Rebecca Evans and Bethan Jenkins around this. You’re right: the report, when it was published in 2012, couldn’t identify a single, clear cause of the increased mortality, but it did identify a small number of potential factors. Those included overcrowding, parasites, and loss of condition in the cockles post spawning. I think it’s really important that we look at this new research that’s currently being undertaken, and NRW are part of that. If you have anything specific that you’d like to write to me on, I’d be very keen to see.