QUINNAT SALMON

Marlborough Express, Volume LII, Issue 68, 23 March 1918, Page 3

QUINNAT SALMON

ATLANTIC SPECIES NOT A

SUCCESS

A great fuss has been made because tho quinnat salmon (a Pacific species) has been caught in New Zealand, (says the Sporting and Dramatic News); Possibly there are rivers in New Zealand where the presence of quinnat would not be detrimental to the wonderful troutfishing—the trout is a sporting fish in every sense of the word, and when he grows to salmon proportions as he does sometimes in these waters, he is a salmon in every sense of the wordj except that of species. He is a seagoing trout, and there obtains his size, just as the salmon does. The Atlantic salmon has been tried many times in New Zealand, with failure for .every result. Hfe grows well in .fresh water, goes out to sea, and that is the end of it. He never returns. On the contrary, the quinnat salmon has returned, bub whether he is worthy the fatted calf that is being sacrificed in his honor, is very doubtful. If he establishes himself in any river it will be at the expense of every kind of fish. New Zealand has had uTiexpected good luck in the making up of a breed of trout with habits created in some way by the translations, habits that were never expected, for their origin was not our sea trout, but our brook trout, which have an: annual inclination to go to sea and never do go there- unless they are washed out in "mighty spates. The catching with rod and line of a quinnat salmon in fresh water is quite exceptional, so that, as a sporting fish he is not going to improve New Zealand. In his rivers he runs up only, spawns, and dies,' and blocks the finest rivers in the world with putrid fungus-growing-matter. Is that a good thing for the trout that have become the natural fish of the river ? I cannot answer that question; it has to be tried to find out, but that which is much easier to answer is that the young quinnat will require more food than the young trout, and being stronger, they will get it. So that once more, and in a very exaggerated form, the hostility of tho trout and salmon interests crop up on the other side of the world.