Coarse Species.

jack01986

After reading sickpuppy's topic on the roach infestation I was thinking how all the coarse species got into the Irish river and lakes etc. Am I right in thinking that pike and tench etc were not natural to Ireland or am I totally wrong? Im guessing they were stocked in by people years and years ago kind of like some monks used to do with carp for food in other countries.

ironbluedun

jack01986 wrote: »

After reading sickpuppy's topic on the roach infestation I was thinking how all the coarse species got into the Irish river and lakes etc. Am I right in thinking that pike and tench etc were not natural to Ireland or am I totally wrong? Im guessing they were stocked in by people years and years ago kind of like some monks used to do with carp for food in other countries.

some believe they came with the Norman invasion of Ireland.....oh we owe Strongbow and his mercenaries so much…..

coolwings

Most of the species here today were brought by mankind and established themselves with self sustaining populations.

Irish native species are all salt water or brackish water tolerant are all cold water species: brown trout, the migratory and estuarine forms or brown trout, arctic char, ferox trout, pollan, salmon, sticklebacks, eels.
The warm water species (coarse fish) arrived later on.

The native species got here while Ireland was at the edge of the ice age ice cap, and swam around the fresh or brackish water at the edge of the ice cap, penetrating into meltwater streams that were emerging as the land ice cover melted. Char and ferox trout are up in mountain lakes because the sea was higher, the land lower with weight of mile thicknesses of ice on it, and much of Ireland was covered by temporary but vast province size lakes of melted ice. They swam into those mouintain lakes from the sea.
So the separate water catchments we know today did not exist at that time and waters mingled in the huge flooded areas.

Shad sturgeon burbot and smelt seem to have come later by sea migration. Of these, only shad and smelt remain.

Sometime after this Ireland separated from the UK and Europe land mass.

Pike arrived between 500 and 1500 years ago possibly introduced by bronze age man, possibly by alternative natural means.

Rudd, bream, gudgeon and minnow came some time after that.
Perch and tench came with the monks for monastery pond food species.
Roach came with the English planters to three waters and stayed in those waters. In the 1970s and 1980s roach were spread everywhere by match anglers and pike livebaiters.
Carp came in several introductions, and carp and tench were placed in suitable waters by the Inland Fishery trust in the 1970s and 1980s.
Dace, chub are being spread by amateur biologist anglers right now and are penetrating the watersheds they are already introduced into.
Zebra mussels came in imported boats and are being spread around to other watersheds by trailered boats.
The mitten crabs and chinese clams in the Barrow are recent, and are still penetrating the Barrow, Nore, Suir so far.

jack01986

Thanks for that coolwings answered the questions perfectly. I thought that had to be the case for the trout and char in the higher areas. The amount of possible unique/ancient strains as a result of that must be pretty high.

ironbluedun

jack01986 wrote: »

The amount of possible unique/ancient strains as a result of that must be pretty high.

yes it is.......and that is exactly why we MUST conserve wild stocks, they have been here for 10,000+ years....they are the quintessential native Irish stock

ironbluedun

coolwings wrote: »

Pike arrived between 500 and 1500 years ago possibly introduced by bronze age man,.

.

mmmmmmmm interesting theory, wonder how bronze age man introduced pike 500 years ago?? maybe you mean the iron-age? no way were pike here then.
(the bronze age finished in Ireland at least 2500 years ago)

coolwings

There is no uncontestable proof of when pike arrived, and probably never will be. We do know from old language, and the derivation of early Gaelic words that they predate or coincide with early Gaelic writings.
They are not a salmonid, and not salt water tolerant, and do not inhabit high altitude waters so they did arrive at the same time as the salmonids. Not being salt water tolerant suggests colonisation by landbridge, or by transport by man/other .. the proverbial "ducks legs"!
Pike are however still a cold water species, and it makes sense that they arrived soonest after, while conditions for reproduction were most favourable.

If you look at the characteristics of Irish freshwater fish - and eliminate the fish (fossil record) that were extirpated by ice ages prior to the most recent ice age ( we may have had tropical fish between ice ages) , the trend is for sea feeding fish that spawn in cold freshwater, then next cold water freshwater fish that spend all their lives in freshwater, then next warm water freshwater fish, colonising Ireland in that order according to climate.

You can also look at Irish fish morphology and colonisation by species in another way: governed by climate and temperature extremes that kill off non hardy species - originally Ireland was an arctic country (eg Greenland) then after that as a sub arctic country (eg Norway, Sweden, Canada) and later until now as a oceanic temperate country which it is today. In other words they came all the time, but only survived and remained here after moderated conditions permitted it.

Pike which you mentioned are also native to Canada, like Ireland, in the sense they are around longer than all other coarse (non coregonid pollan whitefish) species, and shorter than salmonids.
Did man bring pike to Ireland or did they pass along land bridges courtesy of big flash floods, land inundations from earthquake and tsunami, or landslides diverting rivers down the other side of mountains from their previous watershed? A lot happens in 40000 years, 2000 years, or 1500 years.

For example I think Ireland previously had zebra mussels and the last ice age extirpated them. I'm sure I read somewhere about fossil records of zebras.

ironbluedun

Yes these fish are here a long time but they were brought here whether it by man intentionally or not… I suspect pike are here about 800-1000 years, imported as food source…..the other fish trout salmon eels etc had to be here first if not as predators what would the pike eat?
The point is that no matter how long pike are here they are an introduced species along with perch, rudd, roach etc etc….who knows the answers we have only theories no facts.

jack01986

This is all pretty interesting stuff guys some good theories being thrown out there. There is the bones of a serious study there.

Im just throwing this out there that pike can be slightly saltwater tolerant as they are in the baltic sea and are caught regularly enough. If on the chance that there was a land bridge or even lower sea levels due to the existance of the ice sheets than there might have been more brackish water where pike may have been able to survive and move from the UK or wherever they originated from. If you look at the picture of ireland and england about halfway down this page http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/ancient.htm you can see the narrowness of the Irish sea. Im sure my time frame is way off but its theory.

http://www.esoxhunter.com/SaltyPike.php

jack01986

http://homepage.eircom.net/~sheelin/IPSPike1.html

Its only a short article but it interesting nonetheless.

ironbluedun

jack01986 wrote: »

http://homepage.eircom.net/~sheelin/IPSPike1.html

Its only a short article but it interesting nonetheless.

Yea read that stuff before....it’s interesting alright but some of the statements made are a little suspect.......:rolleyes:

jack01986

ironbluedun wrote: »

Yea read that stuff before....it’s interesting alright but some of the statements made are a little suspect.......:rolleyes:

Thats true.

ironbluedun

jack01986 wrote: »

This is all pretty interesting stuff guys some good theories being thrown out there. There is the bones of a serious study there.

Im just throwing this out there that pike can be slightly saltwater tolerant as they are in the baltic sea and are caught regularly enough. If on the chance that there was a land bridge or even lower sea levels due to the existance of the ice sheets than there might have been more brackish water where pike may have been able to survive and move from the UK or wherever they originated from. If you look at the picture of ireland and england about halfway down this page http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/ancient.htm you can see the narrowness of the Irish sea. Im sure my time frame is way off but its theory.

http://www.esoxhunter.com/SaltyPike.php

yea all possible alright, but if land bridges are the answer why don’t we have some wild animals that exist in the UK and the continent?...I still think the pike were introduced about 800+ years ago… look at the grey squirrel it was introduced around 1900 and it has taken a long time to get established and it’s a land borne animal!!! mink are the same…so considering that rate of colonisation is it not plausible that it took pike, a land locked freshwater fish, a much longer period to spread, get established and become widespread after their introduction?...they are definitely here a long time and I suppose the argument is what is native and what is not? Does 800+ years qualify to be native?

if pike were native to Ireland how come we do not have a tradition of eating them in this country? Are there any records of them being a food source during the famine? Or were they as widespread then?
Anyway I think the pike is a great fish, looking forward to getting a few in the autumn………

jack01986

ironbluedun wrote: »

yea all possible alright, but if land bridges are the answer why don’t we have some wild animals that exist in the UK and the continent?...I still think the pike were introduced about 800+ years ago… look at the grey squirrel it was introduced around 1900 and it has taken a long time to get established and it’s a land borne animal!!! mink are the same…so considering that rate of colonisation is it not plausible that it took pike, a land locked freshwater fish, a much longer period to spread, get established and become widespread after their introduction?...they are definitely here a long time and I suppose the argument is what is native and what is not? Does 800+ years qualify to be native?

if pike were native to Ireland how come we do not have a tradition of eating them in this country? Are there any records of them being a food source during the famine? Or were they as widespread then?
Anyway I think the pike is a great fish, looking forward to getting a few in the autumn………

I would say 800 years is plenty for them to become native and colonise and establish themselves. There all good points. I've never caught one myself have to get out for them.

ZeRoY

Some very good informations Coolwings however I see no source cited?

Officially Pike (Esox Lucius - Northern pike) was introduced in Ireland from the UK between 1200 and 1650 for "angling/sport".

LINK; Also you can see the various introductions countries/dates for Pike HERE.

coolwings

Scientific souces: sheesh .. it's an internet forum not Nature magazine!
You guys sure are tough !!!!!!

For published sources you need to draw together many different sources:
The original published works in Ireland were by Dr AEJ Went, later by Dr Paddy Fitzmaurice, later by Dr Martin O'Grady.
The Canadian referenced are government studies similar to that quoted below.
Ron Greer would be a good start for the post glaciated sequence of climactic changes and how fish populations were influenced in UK/Ireland land mass.

However this is particularly interesting:
A Biological Synopsis of Northern Pike (Esox Lucius) B. Harvey 2009

The distribution of northern pike is circumpolar in North America and Eurasia, t widest of all species in the genus. It occurs in freshwaters in Canada and the northern United States; Ireland and the United Kingdom; continental Europe south to Italy; around the Dead and Caspian seas; into Siberia and the drainage of Lakes Balkhash and Baikal; and finally east as far as the Chukchi Peninsula .... (Coolwings: often a circumpolar distribution indicates post glacial influences for water based species eg fish)
continuing ....
... The concept of ‘native’ or ‘historic’ distribution needs some clarification, bec
northern pike, as a species of importance for mankind, has probably been intentionally moved to new locations for hundreds of years. The population in Ireland, for example, while often included as part of the native distribution deliberately introduced in the sixteenth century; its low genetic variability probably reflects a genetic bottleneck at the time of transfer (Jacobsen et al.
2005).

This mitochondrial DNA research I think is most convincing. So 1500s it is until proven otherwise. (I have not read Jacobsen's paper itself.)

ironbluedun

Introduced is the key word there.....the date as to when is not really important.....the fact is the pike is not 'native' in the true sense in relation to salmonids....how long have the salmonids been here??? 10,000 years???