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Trout Stage Daring Breakout at Fish Farm

Trout Stage Daring Breakout at Fish Farm:
When I think of trout, I usually think of adjectives like delicious or slimy. Today, however, I’ll be thinking of a few British trout in terms like daring and brave. Recently, a fish farm in Britain was the scene of an escape worthy of Steve McQueen.

Owners of a fish farm near the village of Alresford have been raising fish for nearly 30 years. Recently they noticed some of their brown trout appeared to be missing. Then a local wildlife photographer and friend of the fish farmers made an amazing discovery.

Dennis Bright captured images of the trout leaping 3 feet out of the water into the mouth of an 8 inch wide metal feeding pipe. The pipe leads to a tributary of the River Itchen about 30 feet away. To get to the water, the trout had to leap into the tiny metal pipe then swim against the swift current.

Fish farm owner David Riley said: “I have been a farmer here for about 30 years and have never seen a fish make it to the other side but I know Dennis and if he says he has seen it I believe him.”

Icthyologists say this behaviour is instinctive. Now is the season for trout romance, and fish experts say the trout were attempting to swim upstream to spawn. The incredibly intelligent creatures were fooled into thinking the water from the pipe was a waterfall that was coming from upstream. They were programmed by nature to try and get past the waterfall, much like their relatives the Atlantic salmon. Paul Knight of the Salmon and Trout Association said: They will follow instinct. I don’t think they would be looking up at the pipe and thinking, “Come on lads, let’s go for it.”

The trout join a growing list of animals that have escaped their fate as dinner for hungry consumers. There have been several high profile cases of animals escaping just before they are turned into food.

Consider one of the most famous cases in recent history. In 1995, a three year old heifer named Emily was taken to a slaughterhouse in the town of Hopkinton, Massachusetts. She was in the slaughter yard itself when she made a daring escape. Emily leapt a five foot tall fence before escaping slaughterhouse staff members and reaching the nearby woods.

Emily became a folk hero as she spent 40 days evading all forms of capture, including attempts to lure her back with hay bales. Emily was eventually recaptured after reportedly grazing with a herd of deer, but her exploits had earned her a reprieve. The slaughterhouse wanted nothing more to do with the celebrity side of beef and sold her to a local church for $1. The animal spent the rest of her days in a field at the abbey before dying of cancer in 2004.

Emily is one of many cows, pigs, sheep, and research animals to escape their confines. Many of the animals who escape are saved from slaughter by the national or international attention they receive. Britain was previously captivated by a pair of porkers dubbed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Pig, who escaped a slaughterhouse and evaded capture for a week, even receiving a little help from residents. The saga was later made into a movie.

Some animals aren’t even escaping slaughter. Takoma the dolphin, in a seemingly political statement, deserted her US Army post as a mine hunter in the Iraq war. The L.A. zoo had 35 escapes between 1998 and 2003. We shouldn’t be particularly surprised by these types of behaviors. Animals are wild creatures; they want to live the way they were intended to live in nature. Even cows, which are stupid and domesticated animals, can probably figure out they’re about to die when they get to a slaughterhouse. I say more power to them. If an animal is smart and ballsy enough to escape their confinement and evade capture for a significant amount of time, I say they’ve more than earned their freedom. Run free, brothers!”

(Via Environmental Graffiti.)