Appreciated by fishermen and cooks alike, the zander was elected fish of the year 2025. With this nomination, the Swiss Fishing Federation (FSP) highlights this species which is not native to Switzerland and whose characteristics make of him a fish with “a great capacity for adaptation”, she underlines in a press release.
Since its appearance in Switzerland around sixty years ago, the zander has taken over our watering holes. We now find it in our dam reservoirs, Plateau canals, rivers but also in our lakes, such as those of Neuchâtel and Bienne. Gilles Monnier is president of the Bernese Jura Fishermen’s Federation for him, zander is highlighted “to raise awareness of the future of fishing and global warming”. Resilient to variations in water temperature, it lives “between 10 and 30 degrees” explains Gilles Monnier, adding that this fish “swims in schools” and is characterized by “its two dorsal fins and its formidable hunting skills with its sharp teeth.” It also has the particularity of being lucifuge and therefore hunts rather in “deep, murky or night” waters, concludes Gilles Monnier.
With the promotion of this fish, the FSP hopes that the demand for pike perch will be “satisfied by imports and aquaculture”, but also that aquatic biodiversity will be taken into greater consideration “because three quarters of native fish species are extinct or threatened with extinction,” we can read in a press release. /vfe
Swiss
