[Jim Eddie]

I have resisted watching as it's all far too familiar to me and will raise my blood pressure higher than it needs to be

Interesting figure of 3kg to 1kg they've mentioned for salmon/trout feed conversion ratios.... personally, I think that's more than a wee bit optimistic. All fish farmers aspire for a return of 1:1 and a hell of a lot of work has been put in over the years to create the ultimate fish feed pellet. High in protein and oils it's an interesting science putting together the ultimate fish feed, but the environmental cost in producing the feed is utterly ridiculous for the gain.
Then think about the knock on effects from all that high protein fish shit faeces lying under cages or in settlement ponds and the euthrophic effect it has. Poisonous algal blooms familair to anyone

Rainbow trout (remember they are a Char, not a trout) are far more efficient at converting pelleted feed to body mass compared to salmon. I don't believe the figures will have changed much since I had anything to do with fish farming and it may peak your curiosity if we look at salmon from first feed to the table the overall food conversion ratio is more likely going to be around 5:1, and that's probably an under-estimate  

The european common fisheries policy has to be one of the most utterly stupid pieces of legislation ever created by man - it defies belief. The quota system is a farce and the waste of perfectly good fish is beyond criminal.

Will anything be done Probably not, I'm very sorry to say.

H  

Hamish

I always thought Rainbows were related to Pcific Salmon nor Char ?

Cheers


Jim

[Hamish Young]

Hi Jim,
That's fair comment, the oncorhyncus family of Pacific species includes the rainbow trout. Whilst it is true to say that they have more biologically in common with char species salvelinus than salmo it would be misleading of me to say they were char alone. However, they are closer to the american char species than the largely 'european' salmo species and are biologically far more efficient/capable of rapid growth/food conversion as the char species can which makes them of great interest (obviously) to the fish farming interests.
Part of that ability for rapid growth might lie in genetic coding as the oncorhyncus species generally have a shorter lifespan than salmo species although the same growth characteristics can be discovered in brown trout and atlantic salmon via selective breeding - sadly, it doesn't come as 'naturally'.
The closest thing biologically that we have naturally in the UK to rainbows is the native char salvelinus alpinus rather than the brook trout salvelinus fontinalis which some people have confused them with. The native char is an interesting wee fish which is just as capable of packing on the weight as a rainbow but, unless artificially encouraged, seems to be something of a mystery as generally they do not grow to large sizes in the UK. A chap I knew tried crossing them but I don't know how much luck he had.
Without going too much further off track the one species I would love to this day to get my hands on to 'play with' (as they interest me hugely) are the hucho, specifically Taimen although Huchen would be just fine. Although slow growing they could, in theory at least, make a very interesting study in fish growth. I would have been very interested to see if they could have been crossed with brown trout...it should be possible... one day maybe 
I'll leave you with that thought whilst I go warm up the frankenstein fish bath 
Hamish exits stage right with a maniacs laugh and a stange twitch.......
H 

[Derek Roxborough]

Charles Marsham at Rispond has been growing Char for some time now finishing them in sea cages, Drummond- Sedgewick made the proposal to cross Salmon  with char but dont know whether any one took it up, easgach 1

[Allan Liddle]

For years our native charr record stood at around two pounds (?) then suddenly a four and a bit fish turned up from Loch Killen by Whitebridge (Invernesshire)
From there we've had a number of 'rod benders' from a few localised waters all with the same thing in common with Killen, in-shore fish farm cages. The sudden access to a high protien diet certainly has had an impact.

As a lover of the wild troots i can't say i am all that happy to accept these new 'records' (i can still hear Hamish's feindish laugh in the background  )
No denying that these are big fish, and i certainly wouldn't mind catching one (or several  ) and no denying these fish are wild (borne and bred in a wild environment ) and no denying these fish are simply taking advantage of a food source that's presented to them, but (aye i know there's always a but with me  ) it's the artificial nature as to why these fish have reached proportions i can't fully accept ( browns as well by the way)

On the broonie front, just to make things a little more complicated, difficult and confusing, many of these waters have natural rod bending broons in there already so if you catch a big fish from here how do you truly know it hasn't reached these proportions without the benefit from discarded pellets?

Answer is for the most part you don't (not without a scale reading), so it is fair to accept these beasts for the magnificent fish they are (unless you're deliberately targeting them below the cages that is)

One thing i'm not sure of is why don't our charr who reside in 'open' systems don't run for the sea?

[Hamish Young]

Have to agree with you Allan, I can't say I'm at all happy about the knock-on effects of smolt production (in the main) on the habitat and behaviour of the 'natives', but char and brownies are opportunistic feeders and when the opportunity to feed easily presents itself....... well, say no more.

An interesting thing to consider where we have tampered with the habitat (in the form of intensive and semi-intensive fish farming on lochs) is the plausibility of bigger and bigger record 'ferox' trout appearing. Now I am a ferox geek, I'll put my hands up to that but here's how I see it:

If you think about it by the introduction of fish farming (so pelleted feed, escapees etc) we have effectively created a semi self-sustaining mesocosm (roughly a mesocosm is an artifical habitat that simulates real conditions but where environmental factors are controlled) which will encourage prey species - char - to artificially grow more quickly. Now I consider that it is reasonable to assume that some ferox will also grow more quickly and to bigger sizes as their prey species are artificially being augmented in size and quantity.

Now is that a good thing Probably not, in truth. Does it peak my ferox hunting instincts a smidgen Most certainly it does yes

I'm also intrigued as to why we don't have anadromous char populations in the UK, I can only conclude that as the wild populations are limited to (relatively) few very deep lochs and lakes that we simply have a strain that has become land-locked; but the ability to be anadromous must simply be 'dormant'. However, similar evironmental conditions exsist in North America and they have wonderful sea-run populations so why don't we I dunno  Perhaps it's simply not cold enough.

In the meantime it's good to see that Hugh's 'fight' appears to be doing well although I remain highly sceptical that it will change anything - anyone else recall Julian Pettifers' 'warnings from the wild'

H 

[Mike Barrio]

Getting closer to that 500,000 supporting sign-ups

499,856 and counting .............

Cheers
Mike

[Allan Liddle]

520,839 now and counting 

With rules thrust upon us such as this makes you wonder if we will ever get the chance to vote on whether we want to remain part of, and be dictated to, by the EU.  I'm in my 40's now and have never had the chance to vote on this.

[Jim Eddie]

n
520,839 now and counting 

With rules thrust upon us such as this makes you wonder if we will ever get the chance to vote on whether we want to remain part of, and be dictated to, by the EU.  I'm in my 40's now and have never had the chance to vote on this.

And you are never likely to get a chance to vote on it if you live another 40 years Allan

Turkeys are never going to vote for Christmas , to many British MEP's living off the Brussels gravy train to allow us to vote on the issue.

 

Jim