Moon Tide

2024
Woodcut

In honour and memory of the sea trout shoals of old that once swam around the coast of Shetland that are now mostly gone.

Lost to greed and profit.

When I first arrived in Shetland I was picked up on a deep sadness from the sea, that something was wrong, that the fish were crying. I still do not understand that sadness of the sea from an ecological perspective, but what in part I think I was picking up on were the absence of Sea Trout in places they should have been. In order to try and understand the loss of these fish I spoke to as many wise elders as I could to hear what they had to say. Some would put the blame the industrial salmon farming industry with their open cages in the voes that are the home to sea trout. Industrial quantities of sea lice, algal blooms, desertification of the seabed, and in the early days release of toxic chemicals to treat sea lice have all definitely taken their toll on the decline and survival of sea trout in the sea. Other factors such as Anglers taking too many fish, the once endemic culture of set gill nets that could wipe out whole localised populations, global warming with its disruption of food supplies and especially sand eels, acid rain in burns, sheep dip in spawning burns that kill all invertebrate life, spawning burns blocked by poorly thought out construction projects. Add these together and the reasons for loss of the sea trout are clear to see.