Music about trout(s)

Professor Gary Grossman of the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, Athens, GA, US, not only writes about trout, see: ‘Not all drift feeders are trout: a short review of fitness-based habitat selection models for fishes’ in: Environmental Biology of Fishes, 05 / 2013; 97(5), he also sings about them, self-accompanied on a ukulele [click to hear .mp3 sampler].

“Speckled trout, speckled trout

Shadow still then darting out

Hidden emerald dark and green

Ghost of Appalachian streams

In southern mountains ridged with age

Streams run fast o’er steepened grades

Pools and riffles stair-step down

Neath oak and hemlock’s shady boughs

Prey are sparse in Southern hills

Sedges, mayflies, stoneflies fill

But mostly tiny midges drift

Growth is slow, full stomachs missed [cont.]”

The professor has been kind enough to provide some extra detail for Improbable :

“The European residents of the Southern Appalachians called the native brook trout ‘Speckled Trout’ because of their light markings on a dark background. Genetically, these trout (charr actually) deserve subspecific status at least and they are in bad shape due to hybridization with stocked northern brook trout, potential competition with invasive rainbow trout, and habitat degradation. The song, besides describing their biology in a pleasing format, is a paean to their continued existence.”

The professor’s new CD ‘Natural Voices’, which also features songs about foraging theory, taxonomy, short-tailed shrews and red foxes, is available here. And it can also be purchased for direct download here.

Notes:

[1] Some models of Samsung washing machines play Franz Schubert’s ‘Die Forelle’ – German for ‘The Trout’ (out of copyright) to signify that the cycle has finished.

[2] The plural of ‘Trout’ is ‘Trout’ or less commonly, optionally, ‘Trouts’