What is a Boar Fish?
By Nicky Hoar
An unusual visitor from deep waters has been welcomed to the Dorset
Wildlife Trust's Marine Reserve at Kimmeridge. The rare boar fish was
found by Mrs Rachel Brownbridge from Blandford and her family, who
were rockpooling at Kimmeridge on Sunday afternoon. They spotted the
inch and a half long fish as it swam about, trapped in a shallow
rockpool by the falling tide. Boar Fish are rarely seen in inshore
waters as their usual habitat is in deep-water canyons along the
continental shelf. Occasionally they are brought inshore by the
upwelling of deep water.
The boar fish was struggling to swim when first found but has
recovered at the Marine Centre and is feeding well on frozen krill.
DWT's Marine Reserve Manager Julie Hatcher said: "This is an exciting
discovery. At the moment we are keeping the fish to see if it recovers
fully. We're not sure how well it will survive if released as this is
not its normal habitat. Over the last month we have had a number of
unusual creatures appearing along the coast, driven up the Channel by
wind and tides.' These include several species of goose barnacle, the
internal shell of some off-shore cuttlefish, a pair of dead Risso's
dolphins and a sea slug normally found in the Bay of Biscay. The boar
fish may well have been carried in the same body of water and ended up
in Dorset, far from its home range."
This is not the first time a boar fish has been found at Kimmeridge -
one was found here about 12 years ago and kept briefly at the Marine
Centre before being taken to the Sealife Centre at Weymouth. Another
was found about 2 years ago washed up on the beach at Bournemouth and
was put back into the sea.
Wildlife Trust: March 2008
