ON Nature, Winter 2007/2008
by Sharon Oosthoek
Oliver Haddrath stretches out his hand, palm up. He is holding what little remains of an ancient predator that once dominated the waters of Lake Ontario. Seated in a tiny, well-ordered office on the third floor of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), surrounded by flow charts showing genetic links among long-dead creatures, the scientist’s attention is focused solely on the thumbnail-sized object resting in his hand. Despite his six-foot-one frame and broad shoulders, Haddrath has the air of a child trying to contain his excitement. He gazes at the yellowed, pockmarked vertebra sealed in a plastic bag. “Six-hundred-year-old fish bone,” he says, striving unsuccessfully for an even tone.
Haddrath places the vertebra in a small cardboard box atop two fistfuls of Atlantic salmon bones that also date back to the 15th century. The bones are among the last relics of physical evidence that Lake Ontario was once home to these huge freshwater fish, a species that could weigh as much as 20 kilograms – more than any other freshwater salmon in North America.
