They were brought from Scotland a century ago. They've survived war and their descendants will eventually end up on the best dining tables of Paris.
They are trout, Kashmiri trout - and they are the business of the future as far as Shaukath Ali, and others who run Kashmir's trout farms are concerned.
There is only the small matter of a 12-year rebellion to settle before sales take off and Kashmir is able to prove its trout are the best in the world.

In fact, the official Web site of Jammu and Kashmir boasts that 'trout fishing in Kashmir is far, far cheaper than it is in any other part of the world'.

Well, yes, if you don't mind the revolt against Indian rule which has killed between 30,000 and 80,000 people, the overwhelming army presence, and the shadowy Islamic militants bent on driving India out of the Kashmir Valley.
'Things are not that smooth,' says Ali, senior officer of the state-backed fish farming and marketing project. But with the resilience which allows civilians to survive war -- even the ugly conflict in India's only Muslim-majority state -- he persists in breeding trout to sell at home and abroad, and to restock the rivers for anglers.

Unlike many farms in the west where fish are raised in lakes, often confined to a small space, Ali's rainbow and brown trout swim in the running water of a diverted stream, at Dachigam National Park, some 24 kms (15 miles) outside Srinagar. Dachigam is only one of 22 trout farms run by the state fish farming project, which employs some 300 people.
It was the British who first brought trout to Kashmir, then an independent princely state but a favorite holiday haunt of India's former imperial rulers. The first batch of 10,000 trout eggs were sent from Britain by the Duke of Bedford in 1899 but -- in the days before air transport -- died en route.

But on December 19, 1900, a second batch sent from Scotland by a J.S. Macdonall arrived in excellent condition, according to an old brochure by Kashmir's fisheries department.
Kashmir started cultivating trout on a large scale in the mid-1980s, with the help of European Union funding.
Ali admits that military conflict and economic underdevelopment have made it difficult to realise his dream of exporting trout.

'Electricity is the main constraint in Kashmir,' he said. The region's frequent power cuts make it hard to freeze the fish. Then there are problems with getting air cargo authorised
at Srinagar's sensitive and highly fortified airport.
So right now they have to content themselves with selling to local customers at a Saturday market where trout is sold for 120 rupees ($2.51) a kilo.

That is just about enough to make money, he says. 'We are at a sustainable level despite the trouble.'
But Ali still sees hope for the future -- or at least when India and Pakistan, who have fought two of their three wars over disputed Kashmir -- finally make peace over the Himalayan region.
'If we had an international airport in Srinagar we could get them to the European market in a day,' he says. 'There is still a lot of scope for the development of fisheries in this state.'