ENDANGERED UNIQUE QUEBEC (CANADA) FISH: LE CHEVALIER CUIVRE

more commonly known as SUCKER

Twenty, thirty years ago, from St-Louis & St-Pierre Lakes to the Richelieu River, and the Yamaska, also in Chambly, existed a fish called commonly "SUCKER". There are only a few hundreds left.

No where else in the world does it exist.

In the 60's, on the north Yamaska, where our Summer home was,there were lovely lively trouts, rainbow and others,heels, and suckers. Great big things, Grey, with an unusual mouth,no good to eat (they were wormy and tasted of mud, most of the time). We took them for granted. Some, we believed were 20 years old. Year after year we saw some individual, great-grandparent, always poking it's nose. ...Well, no more. The story was that, one year, some "persons" decided to seed the River with the Perchaude. Within one season we felt the effect. Two years later we could not find a trout. Sometime later, the great mastodonte- of-the-river was no longer to be seen.

To tell you the truth, we did not notice when it indeed disappeared from our waters.

But, on the 10th of October 1998, Radio-Canada had a segment on this fish, gravely endangered, on it's show "La Semaine Verte". A ten-minutes report, full of details.

For example, they said, there is a man who was able, in a Basin on the Richelieu, to raise some. The biggest ennemy are the summer crowds who swim noisily where the fishes & the eggs get disturbed at a crucial time. In Chambly, on an abandoned river dam (sault), they found archeological evidence of its rich population in a far-away past.

More to be posted.

Danielle.