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The stingray, captured on June 13, measured virtually 4 metres from snout to tail and weighed just below 300 kilograms, in keeping with an announcement Monday by Wonders of the Mekong, a joint Cambodian-US analysis mission.
The earlier report for a freshwater fish was a 293-kilogram Mekong large catfish, found in Thailand in 2005, the group stated.
The scientists arrived inside hours of getting a post-midnight name with the information, and have been amazed at what they noticed.
“Yeah, once you see a fish this measurement, particularly in freshwater, it’s laborious to understand, so I feel all of our workforce was shocked,” Wonders of the Mekong chief Zeb Hogan stated in an internet interview from the College of Nevada in Reno. The college is partnering with the Cambodian Fisheries Administration and USAID, the US authorities’s worldwide growth company.
Freshwater fish are outlined as those who spend their total lives in freshwater, versus large marine species akin to bluefin tuna and marlin, or fish that migrate between recent and saltwater like the massive beluga sturgeon.
The stingray’s catch was not nearly setting a brand new report, he stated.
“The truth that the fish can nonetheless get this large is a hopeful signal for the Mekong River, ” Hogan stated, noting that the waterway faces many environmental challenges.
The Mekong River runs by means of China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It’s dwelling to a number of species of large freshwater fish however environmental pressures are rising. Particularly, scientists concern a serious program of dam constructing in recent times could also be severely disrupting spawning grounds.
“Large fish globally are endangered. They’re high-value species. They take a very long time to mature. So in the event that they’re fished earlier than they mature, they do not have an opportunity to breed,” Hogan stated. “Lots of these large fish are migratory, in order that they want massive areas to outlive. They’re impacted by issues like habitat fragmentation from dams, clearly impacted by overfishing. So about 70 per cent of large freshwater fish globally are threatened with extinction, and the entire Mekong species.”
The workforce that rushed to the positioning inserted a tagging machine close to the tail of the mighty fish that can ship monitoring data for the following yr, offering unprecedented knowledge on large stingray behaviour in Cambodia.
“The large stingray is a really poorly understood fish. Its identify, even its scientific identify, has modified a number of instances within the final 20 years,” Hogan stated. “It is discovered all through Southeast Asia, however now we have virtually no details about it. We do not find out about its life historical past. We do not find out about its ecology, about its migration patters.”
Researchers say it is the fourth large stingray reported in the identical space prior to now two months, all of them females. They assume this can be a spawning hotspot for the species.
Native residents nicknamed the stingray “Boramy,” or “full moon,” due to its spherical form and since the moon was on the horizon when it was freed on June 14. Along with the respect of getting caught the record-breaker, the fortunate fisherman was compensated at market price, that means he obtained a cost of round $600.
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