The spring issue is starting to hit mailboxes, but you can also read our digital version online here (you’ll need your tu.org login and password) or read our feature on trans basin diversions for free here and let us know your thoughts about this issue.
By Chris Reeve April 5, 2009 - 3:53 pm
Hannah-
Just read the spring issue and enjoyed it thoroughly as usual, with one notable exception, i.e. trout racism. I knew it was coming when I turned to page 54 and saw the title Trout Profiles:Brook Trout by Dave Whitlock. I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long and sure enough there it was in the very first sentence. “..actually not a true trout but a char.” Trout racism strikes again.
There is no such thing as a “true trout”! You don’t hear writers saying a rainbow trout is not a true trout (it isn’t, it’s a landlocked salmon). Nor is a brown trout a “true trout”. It’s also a salmon and don’t fall back on the Salmo Trutta classification. It’s literal translation is “troutlike salmon”, just as salvelinus arcturus is an arctic char, the family name comes first, then the descriptor.
The word “trout” is a colloquial description of a cold water species that lives in streams and rivers. It was applied to brook trout by European emigrants to describe the local fish that live in cold streams and are good to eat. They did the same thing to largemouth and smallmouth bass, which are not true bass either (they’re perch) and bream, which are not true bream but sunfish. There is no trout family. So from now on, I expect any future articles about bass to mention that they are not true bass and any articles about rainbows to mention that they are not true trout but landlocked salmon. Or you could just drop the silly racial prejudice against brook trout. Whitlock should go to some awareness seminars and learn to be more tolerant. Dolly Varden is not a true Varden, so maybe Dave is not a true Whitlock.
Chris Reeve