Fishing weir

[6] In September 2014 researchers from University of Victoria investigated what may turn out to be a 14,000-year-old fish weir in 120 ft (37 m) of water off the coast of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia.

These were described in 1705 in The History and Present State of Virginia, In Four Parts by Robert Beverley Jr: At the falls of the Rivers, where the Water is shallow, and the Current strong, the Indians use another kind of Weir thus made.

They make a Dam of loose stone where of there is plenty on hand, quite across the River, leaving One, Two or more Spaces or Tunnels, for the water to pass thro': at the Mouth of which they set a Pot of Reeds, Wove in form of a Cone, whose Base is about Three Foot, and in Perpendicular Ten, into which the Swiftness of the Current carries the Fish, and wedges them in fast, that they cannot possibly return.

[8] In the Back Bay area of Boston, Massachusetts, wooden stake remains of the Boylston Street Fishweir have been documented during excavations for subway tunnels and building foundations.

The Cree of the Hudson Bay Lowlands used weirs consisting of a fence of poles and a trap across fast flowing rivers.

[9] A large series of fish weirs, canals and artificial islands was built by an unknown pre-Columbian culture in the Baures region of Bolivia, part of the Llanos de Moxos.

They are known as atob in the Visayas Islands of the Philippines, maai in Chuuk, aech in Yap, loko ‘umeiki in Hawaii, and pā in New Zealand, among other names.

[15] Most stone fish weirs are believed to also be ancient, but few studies have been conducted into their antiquity as they are difficult to determine due to being continually rebuilt in the same location.

[16] The technology of tidal stone fish weirs has also spread to neighboring regions when Taiwan came under the jurisdiction of China and Imperial Japan in recent centuries.

[16] The Han Chinese also had separate ancient fish weir techniques, known as hu, which use bamboo gates or "curtains" in river estuaries.

[17] In Great Britain the traditional form was one or more rock weirs constructed in tidal races or on a sandy beach, with a small gap that could be blocked by wattle fences when the tide turned to flow out again.

[24] The Lisle Papers provide a detailed contemporary narrative of the struggle of the owners of the weir at Umberleigh in Devon to be exempted from this 1535 regulation.