![]() In each of the Great Lakes lake trout were once the absolute top-line predator of the pelagic ecosystem, where they fed on chubs, sculpins, and various members of the whitefish family. ![]() As mentioned, the lake trouts, which are actually not true trouts but members of the char genus (both trout and char are salmonids), are pelagic species. Its resulting scientific name, salvelinus namaycush siscowet, has to be one of the most beautiful in the scientific nomenclature. Despite some gene flow the phenotypes are genetically distinct, making the siscowet a subspecies of the lake trout. This is where my brain starts to really struggle somewhere in the middle of that water are the siscowets.įound only in Lake Superior, the siscowet lake trout is one of three phenotypes of lake trout found in the lake, the other two are the lean, and the humper or paperbelly. Look into 40 feet of Lake Superior water and it can feel entirely placeless. I find nothing in the natural world so inviting as such clear water, but its clearness comes precisely from its emptiness. On a calm day, when the surface of the lake is smooth, I have floated in a canoe over 30-40 feet of Superior water and marveled at the details in the contours of rocks resting on the lake bed. Scientists classify Lake Superior as an ultra-oligotrpohic body of water, very unusually devoid of nutrients and the subsequent micro and macro organisms that require those nutrients to live, making the water’s visibility incredibly high. When I finally lay down in bed I tossed and turned for much longer that I would have liked, my brain reaching for some graspable image of a school of siscowets, suspended under and over hundreds of feet of Lake Superior water. As freshwater fish go the siscowet is the definition of a pelagic organism, occupying the deep-water habitat far from shore, and scientists have found the specifics of their life histories difficult to pin down. But before long I found myself on a roll reading through my box of old Lake Superior fish population surveys and seasonal movement pattern studies. The email was running behind schedule so I just used a fish poster in my apartment to choose the siscowet strain of Lake Superior lake trout. I am well aware of my love for fish, but I still didn’t expect to get quite so worked up writing my Fish of the Week piece for last week’s Green Network email.
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