I am pleased to report that one of my favourite cryptids, the Fur-Bearing Trout, is BACK! The following post is doing the rounds again on social media:
I was lucky enough to see a Fur Bearing Trout in the Museum of the Weird in Austin Texas a few years back!
During the visit I learned that there are two main theories behind the existence of the Fur Bearing Trout. One is that they are found in very deep waters which are therefore so cold that the fish had to grow fur to keep warm. The other is that once upon a time, someone spilt several barrels of hair tonic into a river.
The Museum of Hoaxes mentions both of these theories, and adds another titbit that some researchers believe that the Fur-Bearing Trout sheds its fur in the spring and regrows it for the colder winter1. As an amusing expansion on the “spilt hair tonic” tale, it is said that fishermen could for a period catch trout by heading down to the river with a red and white barber pole, and calling out to offer free haircuts2. Unfortunately this method of fishing died out when the local mills polluted the rivers to the degree that the fish could no longer see the barber poles.
But, let’s go back to the post. The first picture (the man holding the fish) has been floating around the internet since at least 2015:
The second picture has been taken from the Wikipedia page for the Fur-Bearing Trout3. The third is from a Cryptid Wiki page4. Interesting this picture points to a potential source of the original rumour- it is said to be a fish which has been covered in Saprolegnia, a type of water mould. It is often called cotton mould because of its fluffy white appearance, and can affect fish5.
Looking at pictures online, it does not seem to generally coat the fish- instead forming smaller patches such as this:
Still, perhaps an outbreak of this mould in a population of trout was enough to spawn the story?
Given the above, unfortunately it does not seem to be true that a Fur Trout has recently been caught in Wyoming. Still, one can dream!
References
- The Fur-Bearing Trout on the Museum Of Hoaxes https://hoaxes.org/photos/furtrout.html ↩︎
- Fur-Bearing Trout on American Folklore https://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2010/08/furbearing_trout.html ↩︎
- Fur-Bearing Trout on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur-bearing_trout ↩︎
- Fur-Bearing Trout on Cryptid Wiki https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Fur-Bearing_Trout ↩︎
- Saprolegnia on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saprolegnia ↩︎