New Food-Fish For Islands Rivers

riTHE successful cross-breeding of JL ocean salmon with fresh-water trout, to produce a new strain of fresh-water fish—a feat recently achieved by Japanese marine biologists—could have considerable interest in certain Pacific Islands’ territories, where edible fresh-water fish could add to the diet of ex panding populations.

The new Japanese variety is the result of cross-breeding male ocean salmon with fresh-water sockeye or blue-back trout. In the initial ex periment some 3,500 trout eggs were

put in a tank into which salmon were introduced. Fifty per cent, of the eggs were successfully fertilised.

The advantages of a large edible variety of fresh-water fish which can be easily trapped, over a similar type of ocean fish, are obvious. The trout-salmon cross is a far larger fish than the Tilapia— which has been introduced into many Island territories in recent years—and is said to be far superior in flavour.

The successful experiments were carried out by the Hokkaido Fishery Incubation Station.