Hi
Paul Dando has asked me to circulate this enquiry. The only record he
has found was one possible bone in a midden sample from Bristol. If you
can help please would you contact him directly at [log in to unmask]
Many thanks
Angela
Angela Smith
Documentation Officer
__________________________________________________________________
Gloucester Museums Service T: 01452 396119
Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery F: 01452 410898
Brunswick Road [log in to unmask]
Gloucester www.gloucester.gov.uk/museums
GL1 1HP
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-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Dando [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 18 March 2011 09:24
To: City Museum and Art Gallery
Subject: smelt (Osmerus) in the Severn
Dear Sirs
I am researching the reasons for the range expansion of the fresh-water
spawning fish Osmerus eperlamus (smelt or sparling) over the last 50
years
and whether it is still absent from areas there there are historical
records. Couch (1869) records that there was a fishery for this species
in the Severn. However, there appear to be no other records for the
presence of the species in either the Severn or the Avon. The species
was
highly regarded as a food fish, both as adult fish and of juveniles as a
component of whitebait and is frequently found in fish bone assemblages
from fine-sieved midden samples back to the Iron Age, There are records
of the species being imported as salted fish in late medieval Times.
Please could you inform me if you know of any records of the species, or
of zooarchaeological investigations in your area, that might give
evidence
of the presence or absence of the species in the past.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Dando
Prof. P. R. Dando
Honorary Research Fellow
Editor-in Chief JMBA
Marine Biological Association of the UK
Citadel Hill
Plymouth PL1 2PB
Tel. +44 1752 633296/+44 1579 350129
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