A story of fish, ice and history

I mentioned in my photo post of Tasmania yesterday the Salmon Ponds just outside of Hobart, and how much I enjoy visiting them.   (I had previously been there by myself in 1995; this time it was to show my family.  Children like it a lot because you buy fish pellets with which to feed the large, hungry trout and salmon.) 

The place provides a short history on the introduction of trout and salmon from England to Tasmania which involved several failed attempts to ship the eggs there under sail.   The credit seems to belong mainly to one Sir James Youl:  born in Parramatta, educated in England, moved to Tasmania, then to England again.  (Call me ignorant if you will, but I find it  a bit surprising to realise that “normal”people from even the first half of the 19th century were undertaking the lengthy voyage to and from England for reasons such as education.)  The short story of what he did regarding shipping fish is shown in his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography:

Youl is best remembered for the introduction of trout and salmon to Australasian waters. Earlier attempts in 1841 and 1852 had failed because of the difficulty of keeping ova alive under artificial conditions en route to Tasmania. His shipments on the Curling in 1860 and Beautiful Star in 1862 failed, and next year he directed experiments involving the use of moss in ice-vaults. On 21 January 1864 the Norfolk left England carrying more than 100,000 salmon and trout ova packed in moss in the ship's ice-house. Ninety-one days later the first successful delivery of living ova was made into Tasmanian hatcheries on the River Plenty. Victoria and New Zealand had supported the Tasmanian ventures and their rivers were soon stocked also.

But the details are a bit more interesting, and by the wonders of Google Books, you read it all as recorded in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London from 1870.   The story starts at page 14.  You can download the entire volume as a 47 MB .pdf  if you want a full nine hundred or so pages of the Proceedings for that year.  (If you do download it, make sure to check the index at the back, where the digitiser’s fingers are caught on the scan on more than one occasion.  I suppose he or she must have been tiring of the job by then. )   

So, back to the story.  It seems they first tried to ship out salmon spawn, but these attempts all failed.  They then hit on the idea of transporting the fertilised eggs, but in the first attempt in 1852, in a large tub of water with 50,000 odd ova, they hatched too early, the water got too warm and putrid, and none survived. 

Someone hit on the idea of keeping the eggs cold, so the next attempt in 1860(the first involving Youl, it seems) involved using ice in the ship to cool the water.  But all did not go well:

Note the reference to Wenham-Lake ice?   I noticed at the Salmon Ponds this visit that the ice used in these attempts came from America.(!)

I have a vague recollection that I had once read about the American ice trade of the 1800’s, but I’m not sure.   But again, to my surprise, I see now that an enterprising fellow by the name of Frederick Tudor, made a highly successful business of cutting ice from the lakes of New England  and shipping it to England and even further afield (it even made it to India.)  

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but this strikes me as a little known and unusual example of  global enterprise:  ice shipped from America then used in attempts to get fish eggs to Australia.

So back to the fish.   The next attempt was in 1862, involving a different set up, but the ship struck bad weather, the ice again ran out, the water temperature rose and the eggs again all died.  But this time they found that some eggs, laid in moss and put directly in the ice box, had survived longer.

This led to Youl in England running experiments with the fish eggs on ice.  (You can’t freeze the eggs, just keep them really cold.)   It slows the development down, long enough to get them to Australia.

So the successful method was eventually implemented in 1864, with the fish ova packed in wooden boxes between damp moss (some had charcoal in them too), holes were drilled in the sides, and they were packed in ice in the ship’s ice house.   They survived the 3 month trip, and were taken up the Derwent River, being carried overland on poles to the Salmon Ponds, were they hatched and a significant number survived.

Maybe it’s just because I love eating salmon and trout (it’s certainly not because I am a fisherman of any note), but I find this unusual bit of Australian history a pretty fascinating story of 19th century determination and enterprise.