The Maitland Files
A serialised interview with an international char expert.

Q. How did you become drawn to fish?

A. Because of the bombing of Glasgow during the last war, my parents moved north into the country when I was two, and I was brought up in a house which had a river near the foot of the garden and a loch not too far away. I started catching and keeping fish before the war ended so I must have been only six or seven when this passion started.

Perhaps the lovely reds and greens of the male sticklebacks I kept at this time programmed me to fall in love with Arctic Charr at first sight - about 10 years later!

Q. And when did that interest develop into a concern for their conservation?

A. After I obtained my degrees at the University of Glasgow and started lecturing there, my initial research on rare fish (Vendace, Powan and some samples of Pollan obtained for me in Ireland by Eileen Twomey) made me realise that I wanted to pursue a full-time research career linked to conservation. I was lucky enough in 1967 to obtain a post with the Nature Conservancy in Edinburgh (now Scottish Natural Heritage) and I have been closely involved with conservation issues, especially threatened fish, ever since.

Coincidentally, my first research project with the Nature Conservancy was a study of Loch Leven, a Scottish loch where Arctic Charr had become extinct in 1830. They were enormous fish, up to 50+ cm long and beautifully coloured - known locally as Gellytroch Trout.