Mekong giant catfish under threat from new Xayaburi dam

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By damming the mainstream of the lower Mekong River in Bangkok, Thailand, there is a significant new threat to the survival of the Mekong giant catfish, according to a new study commissioned by WWF.

Being one of the world's largest and rarest freshwater fish, the numbers of catfish are already in steep decline due to habitat destruction, overfishing, and dams along the Mekong's tributaries.

The exact population size of the Mekong giant catfish is unknown, but it is thought that there could be as little as a couple of hundred adult fish left.

The new study shows the status of this elusive species, including data on its numbers, distribution, threats, and measures needed to prevent losing this fish.

Revealing that the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong mainstream in northern Laos would prove an impassable barrier for the giant cat fish, the study proves that the dam risks sending the species into extinction.

The catfish are capable of reaching up to three metres in length and weighing as much as 300kg.

Dr Zeb Hogan, the study's author and associate research professor at the University of Nevada says: "Fish the size of a Mekong giant catfish simply will not be able to swim across a large barrier like a dam to reach its spawning grounds upstream.

"These river titans need large, uninterrupted stretches of water to migrate, and specific water quality and flow conditions to move through their lifecycles of spawning, eating and breeding."

During the Mekong River commission meeting in 2011, environment and water ministers had agreed to delay a decision on building the Xayaburi dam, pending further studies on environmental impacts. Last November, this agreement was swept aside when Laos decided to forge ahead with construction.

There have been growing concerns centred on the serious gaps in data and failures to fully account for the impacts of this US$3.5-billion project, particularly concerning sediment flow and fisheries.

Pöyry, the Finnish firm advising Laos on the dam construction, argues that 'fish passages' can be built. It claims that this will enable fish to get past the dam's turbines and down the river, but this claim has never been put into practise.

Dr Eric Baran with the World Fish Centre says: "You can't expect fish ladders to work without understanding your target species, their swimming capabilities, and the water current that will attract these fish toward the pass entrance.

"Research is still needed to ensure mitigation efforts will work."

Once being widely distributed through the Mekong river basin, the giant catfish were relatively abundant up until the early 1900s. Since then, the numbers have plummeted. The species is now limited to the Mekong and its tributaries in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. According to catch figures the numbers have dropped from thousands of fish in the late 1800's to dozens in the 1900's, and only a few in recent times.

Laws have been put into place in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia to regulate fishing for Mekong giant catfish, with a ban on fishing the species in Thailand and Cambodia. However the species is still fished illegally and caught accidentally in fisheries targeting other species.

Dr Lifend Li, Director of WWF's Global Freshwater Programme says: "The Mekong giant catfish symbolises the ecological integrity of the Mekong River because the species is so vulnerable to fishing pressure and changes in the river environment. Its status is an indicator of the health of the entire river, and its recovery is an important part of the sustainable management of the Mekong basin.

"The Mekong giant catfish can be saved, but it will take a level of commitment from all lower Mekong countries, as well as international organizations and donors, that currently does not exist."

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Published: Amy Munday Monday 24 June 2013, 3:38 pm
Views: 777 times
Filed under: catfish giant Mekong river dam Thailand Xayaburi Bangkok threat extinct WWF

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Unusual <b>Freshwater</b> Bait Will Attract Catfish

If you're fishing for catfish Central Georgia has several spots for you to cruise around for the whiskered creatures.

Catfish aren't really picky when it comes to bait but they do love shrimp.

Tom Hamlin says go to your local grocery store and just pick up wild shrimp.

Cut them up and put a piece on the end of your hook. Fish deep and get ready for some action this summer.

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Car-sized catfish? Supernatural serpents? &#39;Monster <b>Fish</b>&#39; host Zeb Hogan <b>...</b>

“At end of the day, there certainly is some truth to these stories but people also enjoy telling stories. Fishermen tell tall tales.”Zeb Hogan of the show "??Monster Fish"? on Nat Geo WILD swims with the fishes in River Giants exhibit at the Tennessee Aquarium (Contributed by Nat Geo WILD)

For more than 150 years, legends have flourished along the fertile banks of the Tennessee and Coosa rivers of astonishing creatures that live in their muddy depths. 

In the 1800s, tales of serpents abounded in both rivers, including a legend in which anyone spotting the creature was cursed and soon would die. In the mid-1900s, the most popular legendary river creature became “catzilla,” a species of catfish that reportedly grew to the size of Volkswagon Beetles at several dams along the Tennessee River.

What lurks beneath the deceptively placid surfaces of Alabama’s rivers? Are there monsters in our midst?

The truth is out there, and Dr. Zeb Hogan of the Nat Geo WILD channel is looking for it.

Hogan, a biologist and host of the show “Monster Fish,” recently spent time at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga and with fishermen and scientists around the South, searching for answers to the legend of the Volkswagon-sized catfish, a tale passed among fishermen from Wilson Dam in Muscle Shoals to Lake Guntersville Dam in Marshall County.

Nat Geo WILD describes the episode on giant catfish in a press release: “Lured by stories of catfish the size of Volkswagens, Zeb is on a mission to find out if the legendary giant catfish of the South really exists.”

The results of his research will appear in the first episode of a new season of “Monster Fish” at 9 p.m. Central time on July 5.

The truth about Catzilla

For the past 10 years, Hogan has been working to find, study and protect the world’s largest freshwater fish. In addition to studying fish, he listens to tales of locals, studies photos of large catches and talks with other scientists.

This Mekong giant catfish was discovered in Thailand in 2007. The largest Mekong cat ever caught weighed more than 600 pounds. The largest catfish species in North America are blue cats. (Contributed by Zeb Hogan)

“I’ve been traveling to different locations around the world investigating stories of very large fish,” he said by telephone Tuesday. “There are two dozen species of freshwater fish larger than 6 feet and weighing more than 200 pounds, which is as big as a person, and some weigh up to 600 or 700 pounds.”

A Mekong giant catfish caught in Thailand in 2010 was 9 feet long and weighed 646 pounds.

See photos here.

However, the largest catfish in North America are blue cats, and the world record blue catfish caught in North Carolina in 2011 weighed 143 pounds. While many of the world’s largest freshwater fish are located outside of North America, several large species can be found in area rivers, including blue catfish, flathead catfish, the Mississippi paddlefish, lake sturgeon, pallid sturgeon, and the alligator gar.

Zeb Hogan of the show â??Monster Fishâ? on Nat Geo WILD lowers an electric shock boom into the Tennessee River during a recent search for giant catfish. (Contributed by Nat Geo WILD)

Hogan said a 140-pound fish would seem larger in the muddy depths of a river. On his trip to the Tennessee Aquarium, Hogan dove with fish in its new River Giants exhibit so he could experience swimming with the over-sized specimens.

Also fueling the big fish tales is the fact that river creatures likely grew even larger in the past, before humans and chemicals interfered with habitats.

“Some of these stories we hear about Volkswagon-sized catfish and people seeing serpents in the water come from older times when probably even bigger animals and fish were living in rivers and lakes,” Hogan said.

The car-sized catfish legend is widespread, he said.

“You’ll hear it from scuba divers and fishermen,” he said. “If you go around to the dams in the South, it seems as if every dam has its own story.”

So is Catzilla real? In exotic locales, yes.

“Car-sized catfish do exist. I’ve seen one,” Hogan said.

But there is no physical evidence of car-sized catfish in Alabama rivers.

The curse of the river serpent

Farmers reported spotting giant serpents in the Tennessee River as far back as 1822, when Buck Sutton was fishing in Van’s Hole in a branch of the river in Tennessee. He spotted an undulating creature and told friends: “The thing was monstrous. It was the creature. I could see the thing as clear as day,” reported newspaper columnist E. Randall Floyd in a 1993 article in the Spartanburg, S.C., Herald-Journal.

This photo is an example of historic pictures Dr. Zeb Hogan studies when researching legends of giant fish. The photo is controversial because a descendant of the man who took the photo claims the man in the photo is actually a cardboard cutout to make the fish appear larger. (Contributed by Zeb Hogan)

Sutton and his friends were alarmed because people along the river knew that anyone who looked upon the serpent was cursed.

As the legend foretold, Sutton died a few days after the sighting. Floyd chronicles others whose experiences mirrored Sutton’s: Billy Burns died in 1827 after seeing the serpent; Jim Windom in 1829.

However, Sallie Wilson reportedly saw the creature in the mid-1830s and experienced no ill effects. Hers was the last “authenticated account” of the serpent, Floyd wrote.

The creature people reported seeing was about 25 feet long and had incredible speed.

In 1877, reports appeared in The Gadsden Times of sightings of serpents in the Coosa River, a tributary of the Alabama River. A fisherman reported seeing a 20-foot-long creature with large fins slithering near the banks at Ball Play Creek before it slipped beneath the surface.

Are the serpents real?

No remains have ever been found to support existence of river serpents. Scientists believe people likely were witnessing exceptionally large species of fish that live in Alabama rivers.

“My job as a scientist is to separate fact from fiction but ‘fact’ is already amazing and unbelievable enough,” Hogan said. “At end of the day, there certainly is some truth to these stories but people also enjoy telling stories. Fishermen tell tall tales.”

The real ‘serpent’ was prehistoric

Evidence of an Alabama sea serpent does exist in the fossilized bones of the zeuglodon, a prehistoric whale that grew to about 70 feet in length. But those creatures existed in the Eocene Epoch between 34 and 50 million years ago and not in modern-day Alabama.

The bones – found in the 1830s in Clark, Choctaw and Washington counties – were named the state fossil in 1984.

Read the story of the Alabama State Fossil here.

Here is a preview of the July 5 episode of "Monster Fish" on Nat Geo WILD.Join al.com reporter Kelly Kazek on her weekly journey through Alabama to record the region’s quirky history, strange roadside attractions and tales of colorful characters. Call her at 256-701-0576 or find her on Facebook.

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54.3-pound blue catfish sets new mark for Texas <b>Freshwater Fisheries</b> Center

ATHENS—Jordan Rethmeier of Garland and his father often fish in Lake Zebco, the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center’s stocked casting pond. They’ve caught some big catfish, but Saturday, March 16, produced the biggest yet, a new water body record blue catfish.

Jordan reeled in a 54.3-pound fish that was 47 inches long and 31 inches around.

Lake Zebco covers about 1.5 acres. A stream enters one end of the pond, and fishing piers line both sides. At the opposite end the pond widens and deepens, and that’s where Jordan was fishing.

“The bait was a whole four-inch gizzard shad set two to three feet below the bobber and left to drift as the wind blew it across the pond,” he said. “I was using a heavy spinning reel with 50-lb. braided line on our standard big-fish pole that we never thought would get seriously tested by anything. We set the pole down and flipped the bail so if it got a bite the fish wouldn’t haul off with it; it’s a good idea if you want to keep your rod and reel!”

Jordan sat down to rig a trout pole, and suddenly his dad yelled, “Jordan your bobber is gone and it’s not coming back up!”

Jordan continued his story. “The fish took the bait as all the other big ones do in that pond. They grab it and start swimming off. There is no playing around with those catfish. Once they decide to eat it, they rarely if ever let go. He took off on his first run, and I felt his full power! My eyes got big when I saw the huge swirl he made on the surface of the water! My dad said he must be a good one, 15 maybe 20 pounds.

“This fish was big and fighting like it; you could feel the power in every tail stroke! When he would start to get close to shore he would peel off line and head back for the middle of the pond. The difference with this fish was the endurance he had. He just would not tire out and kept peeling line whenever he would get close to the bank. There was one point when he went into a roll, and I thought I was going to lose him. When they do that it sometimes dislodges the hook. We didn’t get a look at him for quite a few minutes, but after each run, my dad kept raising his guess as to his weight, 20 to 25, another run, 30 pounds?

“Then we caught a glimpse of him and my dad just said, ‘OH MY! We may need a golf cart to haul him to the scales!’ The fight must have lasted eight minutes or more—just a tug of war with him taking line whenever he came in close and me pulling him back in afterwards. Thankfully he got tired out just before I did! I pulled one last time and got him close in, where my dad managed to grab him and pull him up on shore with my assistance since it was a bit too heavy for him alone. We both were speechless, and just knew we had a BIG one but didn’t know how big! Fortunately a TFFC staff member arrived with the golf cart to put him in, and it was off to the big scale. I was exhausted! We weighed him and measured him and couldn’t believe the numbers! 54.3 pounds, 47 inches long, and 31 inches around! All I could do was smile. We took him back to the pond and made sure he was doing OK and let him go. Truly a magnificent fish!”

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Catfish poser in Muar river

Villagers claim the existence of giant freshwater catfish known locally as ‘baung’ in the Muar. Pic by Chong Chee Seong

  MUAR: LOCAL fishermen here are claiming that  freshwater catfish can be  found at the Muar river.   Some of the catfish, known locally as baung, are said to be over 30kg in weight.

    Villagers here claim that these giant catfish are able to jump as high as three metres out of the water to catch monkeys playing on the low-lying branches over the river.

  Johor 102 Village community heads' committee chairman Sia Ka Tuan called on the Johor government,  the State Fisheries Department and the National Geographic Society to find out if the claims were true.

  He said the experts should  conduct a study of rivers in  Panchor,  Pagoh, Bukit Kepong and areas towards to Segamat to see if there are such giant catfish.

  "I have received reports from my committee members that such giant catfish exists in the waters upstream of Muar river.

 "According to one  fishermen, however,  there may not be many left because of  water pollution."

  Sia said he once heard of  a baung weighing about 30kg that was caught from the Muar river about 30 to 40 years ago.

  Meanwhile, Pagoh Durian Chondong MCA chairman Goh Tik Tik said there are probably very few giant catfish left in the Muar river these days.   He said that if it was true that the giant catfish still exists in the Muar river, then the  authorities should protect them from extinction.

  Fisherman Mohd Noor Daud, 72, who had been fishing at Bukit Kepong river for more than 50 years, said he once   hooked a 10kg baung using  dead chicken as bait.

  Bukit Kepong resident Isnin Khalid, 74, said if such giant catfish could still be found in the Muar river, it could be turned into a tourism product to attract recreational anglers.

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Adam Guy’s Mekong Giant Catfish Gallery

Our good friend Adam Guy sent us some fantastic shots of his recent trip to Thailand and the Bungsamran fishing park where he spent two days fishing for the famous Mekong Giant Catfish. Check out the gallery below!

Continue to Adam Guy’s Mekong Giant Catfish gallery.

March 15, 2012 by Jonathon Marshall

Filed Under: Catfish, Culture, Fishing, Freshwater Species, Incredible, Reports, Thailand
Tagged: Adam Guy, fishing vacation, Mekong Giant Catfish, vacation thailand

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Tracking Flathead Catfish

Home > Fish Articles > Conservation and Restoration

Tracking Flathead Catfish

As we pushed upstream, fish 1702 was talking to us. Just above the new ramp on the Iowa River at River Junction, our radio receiver on board sounded clear, crisp 'beeps' to tell us we were closing in on the five-pound flathead catfish.

Steering the boat toward a jumble of trees on an inside bend, Department of Natural Resources fisheries technician Greg Simmons was confident. "It's in that logjam. As we get closer, the beeping will get louder," said Simmons. Unplugging the electronic box from the mast, Simmons held it over the side of the boat. The beeps were loud and sharp. "It's right below us," offered Simmons. "1702 was tagged August 20 of last year. The last time we 'saw' it was this May (probably moving up from its wintering area) just above the mouth of the Cedar River. So it's moved up about ten miles since then."

As Simmons recorded depth and other details, it was easy to see why the fish was here. On the inside bend there would be a couple nice holes. The tangle of flood-carried trunks, stumps and limbs created blocked the current, creating a calm area, good habitat for smaller river fish...and the flathead catfish that would swallow them. Across the river, the outside bend showed sloughed-away dirt banks, a reminder of the changing nature of the stream and the multitude of organisms it supports.

Crews last year caught and implanted radio-transmitters in 35 flatheads. This trip was just for telemetry. "The receiver here will pick up signals from the fish," explains Simmons. "Each one is assigned a different frequency. If the scanner doesn't pick up a frequency in the two-second interval, it moves to the next one." It had been a pretty good day. Starting at the Burlington Street Dam in Iowa City on this day, Simmons had located 14 'electronic flatheads' by the time he pulled out at River Junction, east of Riverside. DNR biologist Greg Gelwicks had started there and was monitoring downstream. The research crew, out of Manchester, spent the night and completed their run down to the Mississippi the next day.

On a different trip, they might electroshock the same stretches; a method that brings up smaller flatheads. Or, they would set underwater hoop nets, especially during spawning, to get more of the monsters. They need to see a representative sampling of the flatheads to gauge just how many are out there. Concerns from anglers not seeing as many big flatheads prompted the multi-stream survey. As the top predator, a balanced flathead population is critical to a river's overall health. And if you've ever wrestled a five--or 45--pound flathead to the bank, you know why many river anglers prefer them.

Similar work is underway in the North Raccoon, Des Moines and Cedar River corridors in Iowa. That includes some attention to tributaries. Just prior to pushing off, Gelwicks talked by phone with a woman who had caught one of the transmitter-fitted fish on the English River, near North English. Though there is nothing illegal with taking one home-they know of four caught--biologists urge anglers to contact them to pin down location, movement and other data. Plus, they'll stop searching for that frequency.

In its second year now, the study is showing that habitat is critical...and that fish will move to get to that habitat. For instance, why did 1702 swim past 10 miles of the Iowa River to get back to that particular logjam above River Junction? "A fish might do well for ten months out of the year but if it lacks critical habitat, an over-wintering area for instance, it is going to have to (search for it)," cautions Simmons. "We just don't know a lot about flatheads on our interior streams. We are looking at how far they move at different times of the year. We want to learn about population, growth rates, too; some simple parameters to tell us more."

And through the implanted radio transmitters, the catfish are talking.

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