Arctic char
Conservation status
Least Concern
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Actinopterygii Order: Salmoniformes Family: Salmonidae Genus: Salvelinus Species: S. alpinus
Binomial name
Salvelinus alpinus Linnaeus, 1758

Arctic char or Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus(L.)) is both a freshwater and saltwater fish in the Salmonidae family, native to Arctic, sub-Arctic and alpine lakes and coastal waters. No other freshwater fish is found as far north. It is one of the rarest fish species in Britain, found only in deep, cold, glacial lakes, mostly in Scotland and is at risk from acidification. In other parts of its range, such as Scandinavia, it is much more common, and is fished extensively. In Siberia, it is known as golets (from the Russian голец). Image File history File links Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) from the Neves reservoir in South Tyrol. ... The conservation status of a species is an indicator of the likelihood of that species continuing to survive either in the present day or the future. ... Image File history File links Status_iucn2. ... Least Concern (LC) is an IUCN category assigned to extant species or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. ... For other uses, see Scientific classification (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Animal (disambiguation). ... Typical Classes Subphylum Urochordata - Tunicates Ascidiacea Thaliacea Larvacea Subphylum Cephalochordata - Lancelets Subphylum Myxini - Hagfishes Subphylum Vertebrata - Vertebrates Petromyzontida - Lampreys Placodermi (extinct) Chondrichthyes - Cartilaginous fishes Acanthodii (extinct) Actinopterygii - Ray-finned fishes Actinistia - Coelacanths Dipnoi - Lungfishes Amphibia - Amphibians Reptilia - Reptiles Aves - Birds Mammalia - Mammals Chordates (phylum Chordata) include the vertebrates, together with... Orders See text The Actinopterygii are the ray-finned fish. ... Genera (see text) Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish, the only family of order Salmoniformes. ... Genera (see text) Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish, the only family of order Salmoniformes. ... Species (see text) Salvelinus is a genus of Salmonid fish, referring to charizard or charr. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Carl Linnaeus, Latinized as Carolus Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as  , (May 23, 1707[1] – January 10, 1778), was a Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist[2] who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of nomenclature. ... For the village on the Isle of Wight, see Freshwater, Isle of Wight. ... Annual mean sea surface salinity for the World Ocean. ... For other uses, see Fish (disambiguation). ... Genera (see text) Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish, the only family of order Salmoniformes. ... The red line indicates the 10°C isotherm in July, commonly used to define the Arctic region border Satellite image of the Arctic surface The Arctic is the region around the Earths North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. ... The subarctic is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic and covering much of Canada and Siberia, the north of Scandinavia, northern Mongolia and the Chinese province of Heilongjiang. ... A glaciation (a created composite term meaning Glacial Period, referring to the Period or Era of, as well as the process of High Glacial Activity), often called an ice age, is a geological phenomenon in which massive ice sheets form in the Arctic and Antarctic and advance toward the equator. ... This article is about the country. ... A fishery (plural: fisheries) is an organized effort by humans to catch fish or other aquatic species, an activity known as fishing. ... “Siberian” redirects here. ...

The Arctic char is closely related to both salmon and trout and has many characteristics of both. Individual char fish can weigh 20 lb (9 kilograms) or more with record sized fish having been taken by angling in Northern Canada. Generally, whole market sized fish are between 2 and 5 lb in weight (900 g and 2.3 kilograms). The flesh colour of char varies; it can range from a bright red to a pale pink. The pound or pound-mass (abbreviations: lb, lbm, or sometimes in the United States, #) is a unit of mass (sometimes called weight in everyday parlance) in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. ... Shown above is a computer-generated image of the International Prototype Kilogram (“IPK”). The IPK is the kilogram. ... BIC pen cap, about 1 gram. ...

Arctic char farming

Research aimed at determining the suitability of Arctic char as a cultured species has been ongoing since the late 1970s. The Canadian government's Freshwater Institute of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the Huntsman Marine Science Laboratory of New Brunswick, pioneered the early efforts in Canada. Arctic char is also farmed in Norway and Ireland. For other uses, see Winnipeg (disambiguation). ... Motto: Gloriosus et Liber (Latin: Glorious and free) BC AB SK MB ON QC NB PE NS NL YT NT NU Capital Winnipeg Largest city Winnipeg Official languages English Government - Lieutenant-Governor John Harvard - Premier Gary Doer (NDP) Federal representation in Canadian Parliament - House seats 14 - Senate seats 6 Confederation... This article is about the Canadian province. ... A demonstration aquaculture facility Fish farming is the principal form of aquaculture. ...

Arctic char were first investigated because it was expected that they would have low optimum temperature requirements and would grow well at the cold water temperatures present in numerous areas of Canada. It was also expected that char would be an alternate species to rainbow trout and could provide producers with a different niche in the marketplace. It has been suggested that Steelhead be merged into this article or section. ...

The initial research efforts concentrated on identifying the culture needs and performance characteristics of the species. The Freshwater Institute was responsible for distributing small numbers of char eggs to producers in Canada, these producers in return helped determine the suitability of char in a commercial setting. Commercial char breeding stocks have now been developed largely from these sources.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium "Seafood Watch" program has recently added farmed Arctic char as an environmentally sustainable Best Choice for consumers, stating: "Arctic char use only a moderate amount of marine resources for feed. In addition, Arctic char are farmed in land-based, closed systems that minimize the risk of escape into the wild." (http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_newsletter.asp Seafood Watch Newsletter, August 2006, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, California, USA).

Scotland

Stocks of Scottish char whose size remains uninfluenced by eating artificial food pellets spilled from floating fish cages seldom exceed 25 cm in length regardless of age. In the deep, cold and relatively acidic deepwater ribbon lakes they favour natural food which is not plentiful. They eventually reach a terminal size where energy expenditure in pursuit of food cancels out any surplus that to that point had contributed towards growth. This article is about the country. ... A centimetre (American spelling centimeter, symbol cm) is a unit of length that is equal to one hundredth of a metre, the current SI base unit of length. ... A ribbon lake is a long and narrow, finger-shaped lake, usually found in a glacial trough. ...

Char in certain Scottish lochs have shown a tendency to produce distinct subtypes, or "morphs", (in the case of Loch Rannoch, three such have been identified) each of which has adopted a slightly different lifestyle from the others in terms of feeding habits and spawning behaviour. This has given rise to the idea that these morphs are on the way to becoming separate, albeit closely related subspecies. Indeed they may already have reached this stage. View across Loch Lomond, towards Ben Lomond. ... Loch Rannoch is a large body of fresh water in Perthshire, Scotland. ... Frog spawn Spawning is the production or depositing of eggs in large numbers by aquatic animals. ... This article is about the zoological term. ...

Additionally, each population of char in Scotland is essentially landlocked inasmuch as they have lost their migratory tendency, remaining in the one water from birth to death. In this way they have, over thousands of years of isolation, become genetically separable from neighbouring populations in adjacent lochs and glens. A landlocked country is one that has no coastline. ... Many types of fish undertake migrations on a regular basis, on time scales ranging from daily to annual, and with distances ranging from a few meters to thousands of kilometers. ...

Scottish char are almost at their southern limit of sustainability, and it has been theorised that current changes in climate seem likely adversely to affect their continued presence in Scotland, where they have existed since the last ice age. Variations in CO2, temperature and dust from the Vostok ice core over the last 400 000 years For the animated movie, see Ice Age (movie). ...

Already, Irish char numbers have been reduced inasmuch as certain loughs have lost their populations in fairly recent times. It may be that water quality issues have brought this about rather than those relating more to climatic drift. Look up Lough in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Please see also Loch A Lough is a body of water and either: a lake or; b sea lough, which may be perceived also as a fjord, estuary, bay or sea inlet. ...

In lochs where trout are intensively reared in floating cages, local char have been found to grow to inflated sizes of several kilograms in weight, for example in Loch Earn and Loch Garry. They have taken to harvesting spilled food pellets by patrolling under the fish cages, and from this additional very rich nutrient-source become able greatly to exceed the size dictated by natural limitations as above indicated. Rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss Biwa trout (or Biwa salmon), Oncorhynchus masou rhodurus Trout is the common name given to a number of species of freshwater fish belonging to the salmon family, Salmonidae. ... Shown above is a computer-generated image of the International Prototype Kilogram (“IPK”). The IPK is the kilogram. ... Loch Earn, looking west. ... Loch Garry, from the Gaelic word for rough, is 25km north of Fort William and is 11 km long and 50m deep. ...

Naturally grown Scottish char, caught in the eastern Grampians, have been found to have pale and rather insipid flesh. Those grown larger elsewhere on food pellets may well have also become richer in eating quality. The Grampian Mountains or Grampians are one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland. ...

The Freshwater Fisheries Laboratory situated at Pitlochry, Perthshire, keeps a watching brief on the status of Arctic char in Scotland. Pitlochry (Baile Chloichridh in Gaelic), estimated population 2,564, is a burgh in the council area of Perth and Kinross, Scotland, lying on the River Tummel. ... Perthshire (Siorrachd Pheairt in Gaelic) was a county in central Scotland, which extended from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south. ...

Char remain also in residence in some of the deep ribbon lakes in the English Lake District. In former times these were pursued commercially by highly specialist fishermen using rowing-boats, with deeply sunk small metallic flashing lures, but now this is only continued by a small number of enthusiast fishermen with a very limited capacity to affect overall numbers. For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

References

• World Conservation Monitoring Centre (1996). Salvelinus alpinus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006.
• Salvelinus alpinus (TSN 162001). Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Accessed on 24 January 2006.
• "Salvelinus alpinus". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. 10 2005 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2005.

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List and Red Data List), created in 1963, is the worlds most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species and can be found here. ... The World Conservation Union or International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) is an international organization dedicated to natural resource conservation. ... The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) is a partnership designed to provide consistent and reliable information on the taxonomy of biological species. ... is the 24th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... FishBase is a comprehensive database of information about fish. ...

External links

• Information on farming Arctic char:This site deals with Arctic Char and farming the fish using land based farms. Gives a background and description of the species including it's aquaculture history.
• Environmental concerns
• Arctic Charr farming in Ireland
• Articles presented at the International Conference on the Conservation and Management of Arctic Charr