Comments on: A Personal Investigation of England’s Lake Windermere

By: Sordes

Sordes — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:06:16 +0000

Eels which can swim to the sea and are therefore locked in a body of water will actually often grow much over average if the live long enough. But even then, they will never reach real monster sizes. The biological maximum an eel with very good genetic conditions could reach is about 1,50m, and it would need nearly a century for this. This is huge for a european eel, but far away from monster size. There are known cases of the large eel from New Zealand or the Solomon Islands, which are on average much bigger and stockier than European eels, which lived for nearly a century in small ponds and were even feed by people on a regular base. They grew actually unusually large, but even this eels which would dwarf every european eel were still under 2m and no lake monster-candidates. The eel-idea for lake monsters is theroretically not bad, but it doesn´t work with the facts.
And the wels is also no good explanation for this case. At first the old report of 5m is nearly 100% untrue. The actual records are much smaller, in the range of 2,5-2,8m and highly exceptional. Furthermore the wels grows very bad in GB, because the climate is not good for them. In middle-Europe where the conditions are much better, even 2m are local sensations and very rare, but in England they stay much smaller, and the chance to find one which only exceeds 1,5m are nearly null, not to speak about sizes much over then confirmed records from southern europe. The possibility that a big wels of around 1,5m could be mistaken for a lake monster is actually not bad, and I know cases in which this happened.

By: Panander

Panander — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 17:07:55 +0000

Well I am a regular user of Windermere, both boat and shore, north and south basin all year round. I fish there and have done regularly (like twice a week at least) for the past 20 years. The waters around Wray (where Watbarrow is) is an area I frequent often.

This in my opinion is a load of cobblers. Windermere is one of the most researched waters in the UK. It is gill netted by the CEH for a month every year (in November) and has been since the second world war. The CEH use extremely sophisticated sonar equipment studying the char. I am sure that some strange “monster” would show up sometime in their research either by a damaged net or on sonar sweeps.

As for the 26lb carp claimed in a previous comment, well that in itself would be an event worthy of mention bearing in mind that carp are not native to the water.

By: Ranatemporaria

Ranatemporaria — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 18:41:34 +0000

The sterile eel debate comes about very frequently on this forum. They do exist and grow larger due to a lack of hormones reducing the migratory instinct. Thus the eel remains in one place feeding and growing and does not travel to the Marine place of birth to breed, (belived by many to be the sargaso sea. A subject currently under debate). For more info try searching for the term Sedentary instead of sterile and use the latin name Anguilla anguilla. Pop these into google scholar there are a wealth of papers to be read.

By: UKCryptid

UKCryptid — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 22:30:37 +0000

To be honest with you, any sighting I read or hear of that describes ‘humps’ just makes alarm bells go off in my head. It just doesn’t seem right to me. Are these people seeing floating camel herds or something?

Chances are, if there is ’something’ in lake windermere, then it’s a released exotic animal or a hoax.

Keep in mind that whilst shore access to this part of the lake is difficult, in the summer in particular there are many, many boats that are constantly in the area described. Normally fishing related or tourists. The largest fish i’ve personally caught there was a carp weighing 26lb by the way, quite a beast in its own right

By: Rillo777

Rillo777 — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:12:06 +0000

One sighting of “something” doesn’t make a cryptid, neither does wishful thinking make a lake monster. I am guessing that now that someone has claimed to see something there will be a rash of “sightings”. For all we know he saw a gas-filled log rise to the surface and then sink. Or he may have unintentionally exaggerated the whole episode. The human mind can be tricky like that. I advise caution about giving this too much attention where there is no history of previous sightings. After all, people have lived in that area a long, long time and 2006 seems a bit late in the game to suddenly be finding a lake monster there.

By: RockerEm

RockerEm — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:26:46 +0000

I have grown up with the belief that anything a human mind can imagine exists and I’m quite sure a dinosaur existing to this day is one of them. Explanation for the lack of evidence and reports? Well there definately is that to consider but on a scale from 1-10 you must think of the way Nessie was trapped by the land formation due to the Ice Age. This is a major possibility in this case too. From the description of the eels and the catfish, I laughed the moment it was suggested because

A) Catfish don’t have long necks and definately can’t come to the surface of the water and stick their heads ten feet outta the water.

B) Eels don’t stick their heads outta the water either.

Can anyone name a species of eel that CAN? So those two animals are out of the picture.

By: MBFH

MBFH — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 12:36:46 +0000

I’d be surprised if there was a cryptid in Lake Windermere. It’s smaller than Loch Ness and far more frequently visited so if there was something I’d imagine there would have been more reports by now. The temperatures in the this year have been higher than ever before (24 degrees C) so maybe that has caused some unusual activity in the native fauna? There are recognised anomalous species in the Lake though. The Arctic char is a relict species from the last Ice Age. Scientists think that its survival in the Lake is under threat however due to the increasing temperatures.

By: Remobec

Remobec — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 23:50:02 +0000

Thanks for the info on the eels. However, is this for real, or just something proposed by cryptozoologists/fortean biologists? I googled “eunuch eel,” “infertile eel,” and “sterile eel.” All only came up with a handful of pages, all seeming to relate directly to Loch Ness/lake monsters.

Is it really fair to use it as an explanation for lake monsters when there’s no scientific evidence that they exist? (Maybe there is and I’m missing it.)

I guess I’d think scientifically-undocumented giant sterile eels are more likely than long-necked seals, which I know some (at least armchair) cryptozoologists still find plausible.

By: lastensugle

lastensugle — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 22:47:34 +0000

“Sterile Eel” …would make a really cool band name!
-Kirk, Did you happen to speak to Mr. Burnip yourself while you were there?
-UCTZoology, I like your theory, think you`re right.
A large eel could explain the sighting.
Lookin foreward to the Loch Ness Tale!

By: twblack

twblack — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 21:09:08 +0000

Does a “Sterile Eel” grow larger than a non Sterile Eel??? I would agree this is no way sounds like a catfish.