A little-known freshwater relative of the cod, the Burbot was lost from Britain sometime in the 1970s. Here, a team of ecologists look at the potential for its reintroduction and explain how this could be used to catalyse the wider restoration of our rivers.
If you owned the Usborne Spotter’s Guide to Fishes (Wheeler 1978) as a keen young naturalist it is likely that you did not have a tick next to a fish called the Burbot Lota lota. Known locally also as Eel-pout, Burbolt, Lingcod, Coney-fish, Rabbit-fish, Lawyer-fish or Weasel-fish in old natural history books, the Burbot has faded from collective memory.