This photograph of the Salmon Ponds at Plenty was taken around 1900.
In the mid-1800s, Europeans in Tasmania began trying to introduce salmon to the island’s rivers and lakes. (Salmon were exclusively native to the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans at the time.)
The Salmon Ponds were established around 1861 as Tasmania’s main hatchery. An English-style public garden was also created onsite, with some of the trees sourced from China, Japan, and the Mediterranean.
Initial efforts to ship salmon ova (eggs) to Tasmania were unsuccessful. For example, the S. Curling sailed to Tasmania with 50,000 ova onboard, but they all perished by the time the ship arrived in Hobart in 1860 because all the ice used to preserve them melted during the voyage.
It wasn’t until 1864 that a shipment of salmon ova didn’t perish on the way to Tasmania. Some trout ova were also included in this particular shipment. The ova were taken to the Salmon Ponds, where the first-ever salmon and trout in the Southern Hemisphere were hatched.
The salmon were released into the River Derwent shortly after. They swam out to the Tasman Sea, and because they’re migratory fish, people expected them to return. For whatever reason, they never did.
But trout aren’t migratory, so the trout born at the Salmon Ponds in 1864 were introduced to various streams and lakes across Tasmania and Australia, marking the beginning of the spread of trout in the Southern Hemisphere.
More salmon were hatched at the Salmon Ponds over subsequent years and were introduced to Tasmanian and Australian lakes and streams as well.
The Salmon Ponds has remained a salmon and trout hatchery, and is still open to the public. It now has a restaurant and a museum in addition to its garden spaces.
Tas That Was is a column that includes:
- anecdotes of life in Tasmania in the past;
- historical photographs of locations in Tasmania; and/or
- documentaries about locations in Tasmania.
If you have an anecdote or photograph you’d like to share with us, please send it to [email protected].
Callum J. Jones studied English, History, and Journalism at the University of Tasmania. He has written fiction and non-fiction for Tasmanian Times since 2018, and can be traced by the smell of fresh coffee.
Follow him on Twitter (@Callum_Jones_10) and Facebook (@callum.j.jones.creative).
Tasmanian Times (TT) is a community-based news and current affairs service covering the island state of Tasmania. It exists to provide a diverse view of Tasmanian issues. TT creates and supports independent media content utilising the best of modern technologies and tried-and-true practices of public-interest journalism.
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