You never know when you will learn something new. Recently, I was in a committee meeting having to do with environmental affairs. At one point during the meeting, there was a discussion about someone’s property and how it was being kept, and something about pigs, and so on. During the overview, the presenter mentioned that the property owner had sought something called the state swine garbage feeder license to legitimize what the pigs were doing on the property. “A what?” asked one of the other committee members. “The State of Connecticut has a thing called the swine garbage feeder license?”
Sure enough we do, according the staff member. Later on, after the meeting, while making small talk with this staff member – I am rather new to the committee and so wanted to get to know more about how it all works – he mentioned in an aside somewhat related to this license a type of fish in Long Island Sound called a hogchoker. (It was becoming somewhat obvious that this staff member is also something of an avid sport fisherman.)
“Yes,” I said, “I know about hogchokers.” I explained that, some 45 years ago, in my mid-twenties, I worked in a powerplant in New Haven that drew its cooling waters from Long Island Sound. My job was to clean the intake screens through which the cooling water for the turbine was drawn. This meant cleaning off all of the small fish that got caught. I proudly told him, “Yes, the hogchoker. It’s a small flatfish about the size of the palm of your hand. They’re all over New Haven Harbor.”
He then asked me if I knew why it is called the hogchoker? Apparently, once upon a time, it was common for commercial fishermen to feed their by-catch – their unwanted fish – to the hogs. But, he explained, they had to be careful with this particular fish. Its scales run backward. Because of that, and because it is small enough for the hogs to swallow them whole, people had to watch out less the fish get caught in the hog’s throat and choke them. Hence the name.
Personally, I hold with the ‘bony body’ rather then the ‘backwards scale’ theory. But, you never know when you will learn something new.
July 4, 2023
