Thais hunt for a bear-sized catfish

Posted on August 24, 2005 by admin
Thais hunt for a bear-sized catfish - International Herald Tribune, August 24, 2005
..."I saw a stingray in Cambodia in 2003 that was 4.13 meters long," he said. "It had a disc 2 meters across and 2 meters long, and the tail was 2.13 meters long. That fish could have been it, but we couldn't weigh it. It was too big."...
The giant catfish have been disappearing fast, from more than 60 a year caught here in the early 1990s to just a few today. Their decline coincides with the completion of the first of a series of dams being built upriver in southern China...
As part of its permit to fish for these endangered catfish, the village association then sold the fish to the Department of Fisheries, which harvests their eggs and sperm as part of a captive breeding program.
After that, the fish are to be returned to the river. But, as usually happens, this fish, a female, did not survive the harvesting procedure, in which its belly is vigorously massaged and manipulated.
In the end, the men of the village cut it into giant steaks and sold it...
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