Tuoitre News
July 25, 2012

A second, 86kg catfish listed as critically endangered has died, possibly because of the way it was caught, officials reported Tuesday.

The Mekong giant catfish, which holds the Guinness title for largest freshwater fish species, died Sunday, less than two weeks after a similar death of a 72kg catfish. In both cases, fishermen from southern An Giang Province netted the fish in the Hau River.

The later fish might have died from injuries caused as the fishermen caught and transported it, according to Tran Anh Dung, director of An Giang Province’s Department of Aquatic Products.

Over-fishing and declining water quality because of development and upstream damming threaten to wipe out the species. Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia have made catching the catfish illegal.

Huynh Thanh Hong offered VND180,000 (US$9) per kg for the second fish, after having already purchased the first.

Hong, a local police chief in the province, asked the government to further protect the dying fish soon after he bought it.

That resulted in a trip to a local fish farm, but the care it received there wasn’t enough to save the 72kg catfish.

Both the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List and Vietnam’s Red Book label the Mekong giant catfish critically endangered. It is believed to live only in small, isolated populations in the central Mekong region.

Original source