Some 10,000 young char have been
released into Kielder Water with the aim of saving this ancient fish, an
important relic of our past
Sunday 22 October 2017 21.30 BSTLast
modified on Sunday 22 October 2017 22.00 BST
The Arctic char, Salvelinus alpinus,
is a remarkable survivor from the ice age in Britain, having been trapped in
various lakes and Scottish lochs for 10,000 years. As a result, if you manage
to catch one, the fish may look considerably different from those in other
lakes, because they have had many generations to evolve to survive in local
conditions after being cut off from the oceans when the ice retreated.
Some scientists went to the
trouble of designating each of these populations of Arctic char as separate
species because of these different characteristics, but this idea has generally
been dropped as too difficult, not least because there are dozens of cut-off
populations, some yet to be described.
Further north than Britain in
colder waters, particularly Norway, char are numerous, dominating some rivers
in the Arctic regions too cold for salmon and trout. Like salmon these char
migrate out to sea, returning to spawn, but do not die with the effort and can
return many times. In the UK and Ireland they have adapted to live all their
lives in cold freshwater.
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