Story By: Anna Casap, Sub Editor: Alex Cope, Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN/@ampravda
Fishermen who boasted about catching the world’s largest freshwater fish and even had to lift it out of the river using a mechanical digger are facing a massive fine.
The extremely rare Kaluga only exists in the Amur River basin on the border between Russia and China where they are critically endangered after being massively poached mainly for their roe.
It takes special equipment to catch them and experts say the locals involved clearly went armed with the extra strong nets and steel hooks on ropes that would have been used to capture this impressive specimen.
They added that it was an incredibly cruel way to catch the fish, which is also illegal to catch as it is now so rare.
Roman Podolko who works for the Norsky Reserve dedicated to trying to preserve the fish said that if such a specimen had been caught by accident it should have either been tagged with a chip so it can be tracked by the Federal Security Service after being released back into the river, or sent to a breeding centre.
He said it appeared that the footage was shot on the Selemdzha River which is in the Amur River Basin and is a tributary of the Zeya River after it was positively identified by locals as well as staff from the reserve.
Video Credit: CEN/@Anna Liesowska
He told local media: “This was a particularly flagrant example of poaching of this extremely rare fish. It was clearly a sexually mature individual and is particularly damaging if it was a female that would have been full of the roe which are regarded as a delicacy.
“Either way it has caused significant damage to the environment. Like human beings they have a long lifespan, living between 50 and 60 years and they are not capable of reproducing before they get to around 15.”
He claimed that the fact that the poachers had gone armed with the equipment needed to catch the huge fish showed it was done deliberately and almost certainly with knowledge of the fact that it was an endangered species, listed in the Russian red book of protected species. Internationally its conservation status is regarded as critically endangered.
He said: “You do not catch such a large fish by accident. The method they use is the only way and involving large steel hooks on thick ropes which makes it a particularly barbaric way to catch the animal, and even if not (catching them) successfully because the fish is often critically injured in the process.”
He estimated that the fish weighed at least half a ton, and was extremely rare.
They are born in freshwater, and they then head out to the sea until they are ready to breed at which point they head back to the river from where they were born.
Part of the reason they are so rare as well as the hunting is that the females are ready to breed only once every four years, between May and July.
Officials in Russia have introduced tough punishments such as the roughly 3,000 GBP fine that the catchers of this fish are likely to face if they are caught, but as the video shows hunters still feel so confident that they can even take videos which they then post online.
According to a recent Bloomberg report 30 grams of Kaluga caviar can sell for up to 150 USD, and with an adult producing 19 kilogrammes each fish is potentially worth up to 95,000 USD for the roe alone.
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