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Grizzly-sized Catfish Caught in Thailand
An anonymous reader writes "Fishermen in northern Thailand have netted a fish as big as a grizzly bear, a 646-pound Mekong giant catfish, the heaviest recorded since Thai officials started keeping records in 1981. The behemoth was caught in the Mekong River and may be the largest freshwater fish ever found."
I feel so bad for his grandkids
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
As a long time hunter of the Sturgeon I would have to say that this is recorded and the ones that get away are much bigger.
and a fish.
I don't suppose we could feed it Darl McBride?
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
One down, not many left to go:
5 15_030515_giantcatfish.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0
Still who cares about extinction, if you can get a nice photo out of it?
I for one welcome our new grizlly-catfish overlords.
"The fish was caught and eaten in a remote village in Thailand along the Mekong River, home to more species of giant fish than any other river.
Local environmentalists and government officials negotiated to release the record-breaking animal[...]
But the fish, an adult male, later died. "
Being eaten does that you.
(Please browse at -1 to read this comment.)
Here is an article on these fish. Sadly they sound like they are on the way out -- humans have disrupted their environment to the point that the populations are isolated and can't move around freely enough.
Here is a photo of a giant stingray from the same area.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Thought you all would enjoy this. Full resolution AP photo of the catfish. http://ftp2.nationalgeographic.com/pressroom/GIANT %20CATFISH/GiantCatfish.jpg
"Thai fisheries officials had hoped to release this adult male Mekong giant catfish after they stripped it of milt for a captive-breeding program. But the whopping fish, which was as big a grizzly bear, didn't survive." http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/ph otogalleries/giantcatfish/photo3.html
it appears that killing the largest and oldest fish has a disproportionate effect on the population as the big ones tend to be the most prolific breeders.
The Mekong giant catfish would be an awful lot better off if this particular great-great-granddaddy/grandmommy had stayed in the water.
I was researching this just yesterday so I'm not surprised to see it here. That fish is a whole heckuvva lot larger than the catfish I used to catch and eat as a kid.
/My affiliate link), Chapter 10, even Mark Twain claims to have seen one more than six feet long and weighing 250 pounds in the Mississippi River. (How he managed to weigh it is not recorded ^_-). But cryptozoologists still try to hunt them down, even this summer as reported here. Chester Moore, the organizer of the event, claims that preservation is their goal as well as discovery. This is the biggest North American expedition to research cryptid catfish I've heard of, so it will be interesting to see if they get lucky. They'll need to discover the fish first, though, before talking about preservation. ::)
There are some great photos here at National Geographic's Article on the fish. My favorite photo is the one with an elderly gent cutting a steak larger than his torso. Dang! At that size I wonder if they taste any good?
Of course, Giant Catfish are the stuff of legends, and usually have a kernal of truth. (Links to other whoppers there as well)
Usually tales of the "big one that got away" or, in this case, "Catfish the size of Volkswagon Bugs" are dismissed, but according to Loren Coleman's "Mysterious America" (March 2004 ed.
Preservation of giant catfish is part of the WWF's mission, too, in Thailand & Cambodia. Just this month four giant catfish bred in captivity were released into the Mekong. So Giant Catfish are real in the Amazon, Europe, Asia, etc., but cryptozoological here in the States. Would be cool if they weren't, though.
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"Thai fisheries officials had hoped to release this adult male Mekong giant catfish after they stripped it of milt for a captive-breeding program. But the whopping fish, which was as big a grizzly bear, didn't survive." http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/ph otogalleries/giantcatfish/photo3.html
Why is this even on Slashdot? I dont have time for this. I have bigger fish to fry.
This is not an automated signature. I type this in to the bottom of every message.
Unfortunately, in the more unregulated fishing areas in the World, explosive, and cyanide fishing is still popular.
The premise behind explosive fishing is to lob down a couple of sticks of your favourite explosive, and then wait for the stunned fish to float to the surface before scooping them into your boat. Unfortunately, it is extremely indiscriminate, can damage the remaining fish, and can cause extensive underwater damage to the seafloor.
Cyanide fishing is just as bad, where divers puff a small amount of cyanide into the water to stun fish before collection. This keeps the fish live, and results in no external physical damage. On a broader scale, mass poison release for wider area fishing is less effective, but just as dangerous to sealife. The other problem is that fish collect toxins in their bodies which then get passed through the food chain, to us.
If you wondered how they got the live fish into the tank at some Asian restaurants, it could very well be the result of cyanide fishing, especially if they are claiming them to be wild fish.InfoSec that matters, when it counts.
125lb (57kg) Catfish caught in Mississippi in Iowa: http://www.santeecoopercats.net/records-il.html
Obviously, this doesn't come close to 650lbs like the one from the Mekong. But it does come close to the one you linked.
Personally, I could care less who has the biggest fish. I'm just sick of people looking for every possible opportunity to rant about how dumb and ridiculous they think Americans are.
Here's hoping those organisms that don't "fit with our way of life" don't eventually include our own species. Natural selection includes you and me, too, however "slightly different" you think we may be. And mass extinctions don't tend to leave the same species at the top of the pyramid, unless you're counting prokaryotic cells or something.
Environmentalism is enlightened self-interest, not some tree-hugging, static-world conceit about spotted owls and condors being awfully kewl.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
You forgot to give a man a freezer. So after the 3rd day, he died of food poisoning....
Karnal
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.