One of my favourite guest blogs over the last few weeks has been Colin Higgins from Yorkshire, who - incidentally - was the winner of the compy in January's `On the Track`.Someone nameless - though not in the Lovecraftian sense - enquired about our native whitefishes so like Renfield to Jon’s unspeakable Count I bring news of the powan, gwyniad, skelly, pollan or more commonly Houting and Vendace for the master’s delectation.
Marked by the adipose fin, the fleshy protuberance between the dorsal and tail that divides social classes in the UK as well as fishy ones, the Houting and Vendace are of the sub-order Salmonoidei. They’re related to grayling, trout, salmon and charr; posh fish in other words, although whitefish do not attract anglers kitted out by Hardy of Alnwick, or indeed anglers of any persuasion in great numbers, fluff-chucker or bottom-fisher.
Why should these smallish, herring looking species detain the cryptozoologically inclined? Well it’s where they’re found. They’re assumed to be remnant populations of migratory stocks cut off by ice sheets leading to visual and taxonomic differences among their isolated populations.
Basically the Houting, or Powan, is found in Loch Lomond and Loch Eck while the similar Gwyniad and Skelly are known in Lake Bala in Wales and Haweswater, Ullswater and Red Tarn in the Lake District. The other partner in the Coregonus pairing, the Vendace, lives only in Derwentwater, Bassenthwaite and a tiny population in Mill Loch, near Lochmaben. Or so my sources say; further enquiry suggests they’ve followed the Castle Loch vendace and entirely disappeared from their last redoubt in Scotland due to nutrient enrichment.
Presumably given sufficient time, something the Lochmaben sewage works denied its Mill Loch victims, these population varieties would turn into distinct species. The whitefishes are now protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) and there are plans to re-introduce them to Scotland. I can contribute little folklorish to either fish (though some to its Scandanavian cousins) but would be pleased to hear from anyone who can, as it’s unlikely such a particular fish escaped the animistic embrace of our forbears.
Although a distinct species and a trouty looking one, while we’re discussing salmonids of deep lakes and lochs it’s worth mentioning the Charr for no better reason than its propensity to endure the abysmal deeps. In Ferox and Charr (1940) R. P. Hardie mentions a charr dredged from over 500ft in Loch Ness which lead Hugh Falkus to quip that if Nessie did exist, charr would make a substantial part of the monster’s diet as they are certainly abundant to 400ft.
In the Burbot blog I joked about whitefish yet proving to be the rarest native fish, an allusion that got a few pulses racing. It was nonetheless a conceit but if any of those Mill Loch vendace did escape the predations of Dumfrieshire sanitation, who knows?
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