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May. 20th, 2010 01:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
girlofpreyDue to the demands of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aegflota, I have found the piece I did for my student radio on the pike in Nottingham University lake. I am posting it here, in a more LJ suitable format, for GENERAL PUBLIC INFORMATION. This is what pikes are like, my friends.
We all know how lucky we are to have such a beautiful campus here at Nottingham. The towering trees, the green fields, the lake. But we all know that nature can have its sinister side, and it may just be a little closer to home than we’d like.
In last year’s copy of ‘The Guide’, a section on the campus animals included this passage: ‘For anyone thinking of skinny-dipping in the lake on University Park, maybe we should warn you about the Pike in there that can remove fingers (amongst other things) in a single bite.’
A serious concern, yes? But in this year’s ‘The Guide’ there’s no such ‘warning’. Were last year’s writers exaggerating? Was it all just a hoax to keep people out of the lake? Or perhaps…it’s something the University no longer wants anyone to know about. There are plenty of questions. I set out to find some answers.
Most of us know that pikes can be vicious, but a little bit of research into them turned up some suprising facts. The common English pike, also known as the ‘Waterwolf’, will grow on average to between 16 and 40 inches in length, and weigh anything above 30lb - the largest one ever discovered weighed a massive 47lb and 11oz. They eat plants in their first years of life, but by adulthood eat mostly other fish, as well as toads and frogs, small mammals and some water birds. And what’s more, a pike can live for up to 15 years – and a female can lay up to 224, 660 eggs in one sitting.
A little unsettling, yes? And then in the middle of my research, completely out of the blue, a close friend of mine who wishes to remain anonymous, saw something very strange out on the lake one day. He agreed to tell me the story.
There have been reports before of pikes killing swans, biting their heads when they go to drink and holding them down until both the swan and the pike, gorged on blood, were dead – so it’s certainly possible that one could take down a seagull.
Hoping for some concrete answers, I tried to track down one of the groundskeepers down by the lake, but they were nowhere to be found. Perhaps I went down too early in the morning. Perhaps they don’t move down there until the summer. Or perhaps they know something we don’t. Perhaps they know enough to stay well away.
Harmless fish, underwater monster, or university hoax – I don’t know. But I certainly intend to keep trying to find out. Summer will be here before we know it, and with it comes sitting by the water…boating…swimming. If there’s something in the lake, we deserve to know about it. Until we do…I know I won’t be going for any midnight swims.
In the place of that rather sinister space in the middle of the piece, there was, as I recall, an interview with my housemate J, who honestly told me while I was researching the piece that he'd either once or recently been at the lake, reading, and noticed a seagull seeming to thrash about on the water, and then when he looked again there was no sign of the seagull. I tell you no lie. The bit where I have put "224, 660 eggs" was where I had done research and had not come up with a single, specific answer about how many eggs a pike can lay. Although if what's in my new book is to be believed, I was off by A FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND. Everything else in there is absolutely the truth, as far as the internet at the time told me. I still have the Nottingham Guide where they warn you about the pike in the lake too. AND THERE REALLY WERE NO GROUNDSPEOPLE BY THE LAKE WHEN I WENT DOWN. NO GROUNDSPEOPLE AT ALL.
I am going downstairs now to see if there are any episodes of South Park on while my hair dries. I LOVE Kyle Broflovski. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH.
aegflota, I have found the piece I did for my student radio on the pike in Nottingham University lake. I am posting it here, in a more LJ suitable format, for GENERAL PUBLIC INFORMATION. This is what pikes are like, my friends.We all know how lucky we are to have such a beautiful campus here at Nottingham. The towering trees, the green fields, the lake. But we all know that nature can have its sinister side, and it may just be a little closer to home than we’d like.
In last year’s copy of ‘The Guide’, a section on the campus animals included this passage: ‘For anyone thinking of skinny-dipping in the lake on University Park, maybe we should warn you about the Pike in there that can remove fingers (amongst other things) in a single bite.’
A serious concern, yes? But in this year’s ‘The Guide’ there’s no such ‘warning’. Were last year’s writers exaggerating? Was it all just a hoax to keep people out of the lake? Or perhaps…it’s something the University no longer wants anyone to know about. There are plenty of questions. I set out to find some answers.
Most of us know that pikes can be vicious, but a little bit of research into them turned up some suprising facts. The common English pike, also known as the ‘Waterwolf’, will grow on average to between 16 and 40 inches in length, and weigh anything above 30lb - the largest one ever discovered weighed a massive 47lb and 11oz. They eat plants in their first years of life, but by adulthood eat mostly other fish, as well as toads and frogs, small mammals and some water birds. And what’s more, a pike can live for up to 15 years – and a female can lay up to 224, 660 eggs in one sitting.
A little unsettling, yes? And then in the middle of my research, completely out of the blue, a close friend of mine who wishes to remain anonymous, saw something very strange out on the lake one day. He agreed to tell me the story.
There have been reports before of pikes killing swans, biting their heads when they go to drink and holding them down until both the swan and the pike, gorged on blood, were dead – so it’s certainly possible that one could take down a seagull.
Hoping for some concrete answers, I tried to track down one of the groundskeepers down by the lake, but they were nowhere to be found. Perhaps I went down too early in the morning. Perhaps they don’t move down there until the summer. Or perhaps they know something we don’t. Perhaps they know enough to stay well away.
Harmless fish, underwater monster, or university hoax – I don’t know. But I certainly intend to keep trying to find out. Summer will be here before we know it, and with it comes sitting by the water…boating…swimming. If there’s something in the lake, we deserve to know about it. Until we do…I know I won’t be going for any midnight swims.
In the place of that rather sinister space in the middle of the piece, there was, as I recall, an interview with my housemate J, who honestly told me while I was researching the piece that he'd either once or recently been at the lake, reading, and noticed a seagull seeming to thrash about on the water, and then when he looked again there was no sign of the seagull. I tell you no lie. The bit where I have put "224, 660 eggs" was where I had done research and had not come up with a single, specific answer about how many eggs a pike can lay. Although if what's in my new book is to be believed, I was off by A FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND. Everything else in there is absolutely the truth, as far as the internet at the time told me. I still have the Nottingham Guide where they warn you about the pike in the lake too. AND THERE REALLY WERE NO GROUNDSPEOPLE BY THE LAKE WHEN I WENT DOWN. NO GROUNDSPEOPLE AT ALL.
I am going downstairs now to see if there are any episodes of South Park on while my hair dries. I LOVE Kyle Broflovski. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-22 12:36 am (UTC)