Fishy Behaviour In Arctic Norway
episodePreviously titled “Fishy Behaviour in Arctic Norway” — renamed by the publisher on Sep 18, 2026
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What did Ken Whelan learn from his Sami fishing trip in northern Norway?
This is Moody Goes Wild on RTE Radio 1.
Yes, another great hour of natural history until eleven PM right here on RTE Radio One, in the company of the Mooney Goes Wild team. In studio tonight, Dr. Richard Collins, Terry Flanagan, and our fishery scientist, Ken Wheelan. Ken, listen to this, I'm sure you'll recognize it given where you've just returned from.
Whoa.
For those of you at home, what you're listening to is called a joik, a traditional Sami style of music from northern Europe. And I'm told it's not about telling a story like a song, instead, it's about capturing the feeling of a person, a place, an animal, or a moment. Now, I made this recording at a Sami camp north of Troms in Norway last December when I was making a Documentary about reindeer. It's very hypnotic, so please don't fall asleep. We've got a lot to get through tonight.
As I mentioned, our fishery scientist, Dr. Ken Whalen, is with us. That's especially for you, Ken, because he's just returned from a trip with the Sami people in northern Norway. What were you doing with them, Ken? Were you fishing with them? I was eating their catch.
We were doing our best to try and reduce the amount of fish that they have available to them. No, I can't seem to leave the Arctic at all. I absolutely adore the Arctic. So we had a very interesting adventure myself and some friends of mine. We went on a on a fishing holiday, but it turned into a really a wildlife expedition, really. So we were in the very northern tip of uh Norway. If you look at a a town called Vlaxlev, we were in that area and we were also in In Finland as well, because some of my friends wanted to catch some exotic species of fish that we don't have here in Ireland. But we found out all sorts of interesting things about king crabs and about sea run Arctic char and so on. So there was lots of interesting stuff.
What's the fish that we haven't here that they have up there? So we have Arctic char for it.
How do sea‑run Arctic Char differ from the land‑locked varieties in Ireland?
We ha
we have Arctic Char and the Arctic Char here are confined to the lakes because they've lost their ability to go to sea. And we were interested to find out a little about these wonderful seagoing Arctic Char, which were the original of the species. They came in and colonized the lakes and rivers in Ireland originally. But um the other fish then that my friends were interested in catching is a fish called the grayling. So the grayling never quite reached Ireland. It reached Britain. But it never got to Ireland and they were very keen to catch some grailing and some of the rivers that the Sami people uh work on and fish on, uh particularly this great big river called the Tana. It's called the Tenno by the by the Finnish people and by some of the Samis.
But the Tana, as it's more commonly known, was the biggest Atlantic salmon river in the world. And unfortunately now a lot of it is closed because of problems. comes with Atlantic salmon, but there are very large numbers of these graylings, so I wanted to make sure that all of my friends caught their first Arctic grayling, which they did.
And you caught your first one, did you take it?
Oh no, I I've been catching gray for a long, long time. So I'm sorry for suggesting that you were
an experienced grayling catcher. So that was the
only reason I was brought along was to make sure they caught gra they caught the grayling in the first morning, so that was great. Are they
difficult to catch a salmon or what? No,
not not near as difficult. But they're they're very interesting biologically. They're quite different uh to the biology of trout in that they spawn in spring and uh they tend to uh feed during the winter period. So most of my grayling fishing has been in England and in Slovenia. And in England most of the grayling fishing is from October onwards. So they substitute for trout at that period. But they're really interesting because They're a shoal fish and they've much different habits to trout, so they're quite challenging to catch. They're
salmonids, are
they? Oh they're salmonids, yeah. They're They're salmonids.
I see.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What did Ken Whelan learn from his Sami fishing trip in northern Norway?
0:00–2:40
2
How do sea‑run Arctic Char differ from the land‑locked varieties in Ireland?
2:40–4:33
3
Why is the grayling a prized but rare catch in the Tana River region?
4:33–7:07
4
What impact have invasive pink salmon had on Arctic river ecosystems?
7:07–9:20
5
How are Russian‑introduced king crabs reshaping Norway’s coastal fisheries?
9:20–11:45
6
Why are modern fish‑pass designs crucial for salmon migration on the Shannon?
11:45–14:09
7
How do salmon navigate downstream barriers and what does that reveal about their behavior?
14:09–15:53
8
What genetic traits are at risk in Atlantic salmon populations and how can they be protected?
15:53–18:16