The burbot to be reintroduced to UK's aquatic fauna

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Forget dreams of wolves, bears or lynx – the next animal to be restored to the British countryside could be a river bottom-dwelling fish that resembles a giant tadpole.

The burbot, much-maligned for its unprepossessing appearance with a fleshy appendage dangling from its chin, was last sighted in British rivers in 1969.

 The burbot, also known as the eelpout and the lingcod, disappeared at the same time as the otter vanished from waterways. In both cases, agricultural and heavy metal pollution may have played a role.

Tosney said the cause of the burbot’s disappearance remained “a bit of a mystery” but was a combination of pressures including the disappearance of natural “messy” edges to rivers, including pools, flooded areas and back channels.

The burbot, the only freshwater species of cod, once thrived at the bottom of cool lowland rivers across eastern England but leaves its preferred habitat for ponds and pools to spawn and so requires pools and other freshwater close to the river.

The fish has been successfully reintroduced into Belgium and Germany, and Tosney said there were several river valleys in the East Anglian Fens with good floodplains that could be ideal habitat.
Before the fish is brought back there will be further feasibility studies and also an environmental DNA survey to check there are no traces of burbot DNA in rivers, which would prove that a few survivors have evaded detection since the 1960s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Source: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/06/return-of-the-burbot-great-lost-fish-to-be-reintroduced-to-uk

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