Quid
Fortune Quid
Fortune Quid
My name is Quid.
You can find me on the Fish trail just by the Minerva.Now don’t apologise if you don’t know what a Quid is. You’re not alone..And that’s my problem. No one has ever heard of me, knows what I look like, or is interested in me. You don’t have to worry about the ecosystem with me; or what stocks of Quid there are in the ocean, because as far as the experts are concerned I don’t exist….Why don’t you find me on line if you are interested? Go on, Google me.You’ll find I’m a defunct pound note from the 20th century; or I’m a chunk of tobacco chewed by old sailors and then spat out; or on a good day I’m a Quid pro Quo – something given for an equivalent something else….I quite like that one. But there’s nothing about Quid the fish.What I don’t like is being referred to as a Squid. Type me into a search engine and up pops “Did you mean Squid?” and before you know it I’m “a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms and 2 tentacles”. Ugh, I don’t fancy being one of those at all….that’s too weird.And then I got to thinking a few months ago….does it really matter if I’m an unknown? Maybe it would be better to be an obscure, non-existent fish. At least it would mean I wouldn’t be on a restaurant menu, fished by trawlers or studied by marine biologists. Set aside my ego, go with the flow and I gain an advantage over some of my more popular sea friends.After all I don’t think humans have a clue about what really goes on in the sea….they’re the ones who want to categorise us fish, count us, film us for documentaries, fish us in big nets or scrape the bottom of the ocean to see what they can plunder….if you don’t exist that could be a bit of a result! I could remain incognito…do my own thing and maybe even help some of my more popular colleagues!So I think my epitaph will be“Quid – Unknown and best left that way”.
Caught in a net
Lobster Pot £
Surfing for money
Artist: Tony Rheinberg
Quid
Conservation status
The name ‘Quid’ can be found on the Fish Trail in a pavement sculpture close to the Minerva Inn near the pier.
Extensive investigation hasn’t revealed the identity of this fish. The most likely explanation being that it is has some local and/or historical connection to a more common fish. In one of the fish trail leaflets for instance it is referred to as a small salmon. Maybe it also links to the cost of purchasing a weight or quantity of fish.
Because of it’s questionable identity it has no formal ‘conservation’ status but it has been used in this entry to symbolise the threat that all fish are under from over fishing, by catch and pollution.