FAUNA and FLORA
The lake's wildlife is one of its great treasures. La Véronnière marsh, at the north end and classified as a “protected natural area”, is one of the finest bird reserves in the Dauphiné: grebes, herons, kingfishers, ducks, teal, coots and swans find shelter and food there, to name but a few.
The aquatic wildlife is just as rich: pike, carp, perch, tench, whitefish, crayfish, Arctic char, trout and more make Lake Paladru popular with anglers.
There are also freshwater mussels (Anodonta), which are highly toxic! On the other hand, they filter the water and help purify it.
The lake's flora includes many plant species, some of which are vital to the life of the lake and its wildlife. For example, reeds help clean the lake naturally and shelter the broods of coots. Water lilies brighten the lake when in flower. Underwater plants let small fish hide from predators. Plankton feeds carp and many other species...
The lake is a living world, both rich and fragile.
The lake's reed beds are protected by a prefectural order
that prohibits entering or damaging them in any way.
Aquatic plants:
- common reed (Phragmites)
- rushes
- water lily
- pondweeds
- water milfoil
- rigid hornwort
- water crowfoot
- amphibious bistort: a floating plant
- great yellowcress (wild horseradish)
- stoneworts: plants halfway between mosses and algae
- bulrush (reedmace)
- duckweed
- yellow flag iris
Many of these plants have become very rare or have disappeared altogether, victims of water pollution – now halted by the sewer ring around the lake. But nitrates are still too high.
Fish:
- Salmonids:
o Arctic char: at spawning time it becomes the “golden fish”. It feeds on microscopic crustaceans and live prey. Its spawning grounds lie in sheltered hollows near springs of clear water.
o Trout
- Cyprinids:
o Carp: it leaps when spawning and lays its eggs on aquatic plants near the shore. It is omnivorous. In winter it becomes torpid, neither moving nor feeding.
o Tench: its eggs stick to plants, like those of the carp.
o Common roach (“véron”): it lays its eggs on algae-covered bottoms or submerged roots (at La Véronnière). In winter it rests in deep water.
o Rudd
o Chub and bullhead
o Bream.
- Esocids:
o Pike – the shark of fresh water.
- Percids:
o Perch: its eggs form greenish-white strings on shore stones or aquatic plants. It is voracious, feeding on small fish and fry, and also eats dragonflies. Locally, young perch are called “brunes”.
- Eels and crayfish: now very rare.
- Wels catfish
Water birds:
- mallard
- Eurasian coot
- Judelle (local name for the coot)
- kingfisher
- heron
- moorhen
- grebe
- gull
- bittern
- migrating birds: heron, lapwing, plover, wild goose, common pochard and tufted duck, common redshank, tern, gull, red-crested pochard.
In recent years, cormorants have settled on the lake and eat huge quantities of fry, as well as pike up to 50 cm and perch up to 740 g, not to mention trout, char and whitefish. Although the cormorant is a protected species, a prefectural order allows a small number to be culled to limit the damage.
Other aquatic animals:
- the muskrat, which does serious damage to the reed beds.