Man-Eating Catfish

MAN-EATING CATFISH: LEGENDS AND REALITY

Every year, swimmers mysteriously vanished in one of China's reservoirs. But now the mystery of their disappearance appears to have been solved. Not long ago, a huge three-metre catfish was caught in this body of water, its head more than a metre wide! Human remains were found inside the catfish.

There are known cases of hungry catfish lunging at rotten rags and even snatching laundry from the hands of women rinsing it. A catfish is strong enough to overturn a boat, knock a hapless angler out of it with a blow of its tail, and, when needed, ram through a sturdy net, dragging off the fish caught in it. And it's no fool, either.

In Ukraine there are plenty of tales about how a catfish sneaks up on trees leaning over the water and, with a deft flick of its tail, knocks down not only a nest full of chicks but quite often some careless crow as well.

These days, in one of the lakes of the Dutch holiday park «Centerparcs», a 2.3-metre catfish is striking tourists with fear mixed with curiosity.

The main diet of Big Mama, as the locals have nicknamed the catfish, consists of ducks that carelessly choose her lake to rest on. According to park staff, the underwater monster eats two or three birds a day. On top of that, it already has several large and small dogs to its name.

The Dutch catfish has already scared off all the local ducks, which have moved to other lakes, well away from its jaws. Even so, Big Mama never goes hungry, because a few stray birds always land on the lake, unaware that a monster is lying in wait for them in the still water.

According to «Centerparcs» biologist Jean Hanks, Big Mama managed to grow to such a size because the lake has exceptionally clean water, plenty of food all around and a very calm environment.

Six metres of horror

So as not to scare off tourists, the authorities at first hushed up the incident, but the news got out all the same. Swimming in the reservoir is currently banned because there is a high likelihood that other man-eating fish live in it too.

Last summer, a catfish of enormous size also frightened the residents of the Kazakh city of Aktobe, which stands on the bank of the Ilek River. Citizens even appealed to the authorities to catch the killer fish once and for all.

Rumours of a man-eating catfish picked up after three young people drowned at once in the waters near the Zhilgorodok beach.

"Local residents claim that a catfish is to blame for the deaths. One moonlit night," says longtime local Boris Tatarintsev, "I saw a huge fish: a giant catfish basking at the surface. It has to eat a lot to feed itself. And a lot of people have gone missing here…"

"The catfish is the largest of the river predators. According to the famous zoologist Brehm, this fish reaches a length of 3 metres and a weight of 230 kg. However, judging by other sources, both the length and weight of catfish can be much greater. For example, the American zoologist David Willer, in his book Killer Fish, gives figures of 6.3 metres and 500 kg!"

Catfish live in practically all the large rivers, lakes and reservoirs of Russia and the CIS, from the southern borders to the Far East. They are also widespread in Europe, except for the northern countries. Catfish live in Canada, the USA and Latin America. But, by and large, giant fish can turn up in any body of water that has a good food supply for them.

According to experts, a catfish can attack any living creature on the surface of the water. The predator, which has practically no enemies, always tries to swallow its prey whole. Catfish can't tear chunks off it like sharks do, because they have no teeth as such. The tiny teeth in several rows are more like a brush, which makes it impossible to bite through the victim.

For a huge catfish weighing several hundred kilograms that has lived half a century (and they can live up to 100 years), it is quite hard to secure a regular breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hunting fish is a burden for it. A 50-year-old catfish has speed and strength to spare, but its manoeuvrability isn't what it used to be. It's a different story with prey floating on the surface of the water: ducks, geese, dogs and other four-legged animals that, to their misfortune, decide to go into the water. And, of course, humans, who are much easier to grab by the leg than a dog. Once it has tasted human flesh, a catfish, like some African crocodiles, may switch exclusively to that kind of food.

A few years ago, near Khortytsia Island, a tugboat that had gone missing the day before was found at a depth of 15 metres. There was a huge gaping hole in its side, and stuck in it was a five-metre catfish!

When its carcass was brought to the surface and its stomach cut open, everyone present gasped in horror: inside were the remains of three Polish tourists who had been searched for in vain. Shortly before, they had transferred from the stricken boat to a motorboat but never made it to shore.

Local old-timers claim that killer catfish have already carried out more than a dozen attacks on motorboats and sailboats. Disappearances of anglers who preferred fishing farther from shore have also become more frequent.

In the Khopyor Nature Reserve, in the presence of two gamekeepers, a forester and a senior researcher from the biological station, a catfish attack on a young deer was recorded. Before the eyes of witnesses, the voracious predator dragged the poor animal to the bottom of the lake. Old-timers note that similar cases have happened before.

Attempts to find and catch the killer catfish were unsuccessful. A commission set up on the initiative of the reserve's management and specialists from the biology faculty of Voronezh State University concluded that the catfish's unusual behaviour is explained by a tectonic fault and the unusual state of the earth's crust in the area of the Khopyor Nature Reserve. The energy emissions recorded in the fault zone may well have caused such unusual, aggressive behaviour in the catfish.

At the end of the summer of 1996, in the village of Kulakovo (Rossoshansky District, Voronezh Region), two people, a woman and a boy, fell victim to a man-eating catfish.

The man-eater goes hunting

If a catfish's prey is too big for its mouth, the predator leaves it on the bottom for a while. Only once the body starts to decompose and turns soft does the catfish gradually begin sucking in pieces of flesh. The killer fish usually goes hunting at sunset and prowls the water in search of prey until dawn. That is exactly why it is not a good idea to swim in the evening in places where catfish live.

The well-known ichthyologist Richiuti cites a number of historical cases in which people became victims of catfish. For example, in 1613 a river predator swallowed a child in the area of present-day Pressburg; in 1754 the body of a 7-year-old child was found in the belly of one of the giant catfish; and at the end of the 18th century a predator was caught in Turkey with the body of a woman in its belly. Another report from Turkey says that in 1793 two little girls fell victim to a man-eating catfish.

The catfish has long been called the king fish of the Dnieper. Legends were made up about these whiskered giants, and the most incredible stories were passed from mouth to mouth. Even today on the beaches of the Dnieper you can hear tales of river man-eaters that sneak up on swimmers unnoticed and drag them down into the dark depths.

There are known cases of starving catfish lunging at rotten rags and even snatching laundry out of the hands of women rinsing it. A catfish is strong enough to overturn a boat, knock a hapless fisherman out of it with a blow of its tail, and, if need be, ram through a sturdy net, taking the fish caught in it along with it. And it is no fool, either.

In Ukraine there are plenty of tall tales about how a catfish quietly swims up to trees leaning over the water and, with a deft flick of its tail, knocks down not only a nest with chicks but often some careless crow as well.

Nowadays, in one of the lakes of the Dutch holiday park "Centerparcs", a 2.3-metre catfish fills tourists with fear mixed with curiosity.

The main diet of Big Mama, as the locals have nicknamed the catfish, consists of ducks that unwisely choose its lake for a rest. According to park staff, the underwater monster eats two or three birds a day. On top of that, it already has several big and small dogs to its name.

The Dutch catfish has already scared off all the local ducks, which have moved to other lakes, further away from its jaws. Even so, Big Mama never goes hungry, since a few stray birds always fly in to the lake, unaware that a monster is waiting for them in the calm water.

According to Centerparcs biologist Jean Hanks, Big Mama managed to grow so big because the water in the lake is unusually clean, there is plenty of food around and it is very quiet.

The Water Spirit of Lake Velikoye

Legends about water spirits that drag their victims to the bottom, and the bad reputation of some river pools, may also be connected with giant river catfish.

"Last summer I was staying with relatives in the Shatura District near Moscow," says Nikolai Blinkov. "And one morning, at about eight o'clock I guess, my nephew Andreyka wakes me up and shouts practically right in my ear: 'Uncle Kolya, Uncle Kolya, get up quick, let's go see the Water Spirit! He's putting on a whole show in the lake!'…

At first, half asleep, I didn't get a thing, but Andreyka quickly explained it all to me. It turned out that in Lake Velikoye, on the shore of which our village stands, a real Water Spirit had been raising hell for over an hour, the very same one they tell fairy tales about!

Truth be told, I'd stopped believing in fairy tales long ago, but my nephew was so convincing that I had to go with him to the lake without even washing my face. Luckily, it was just a few minutes from the house.

As it soon turned out, we weren't the only ones who had come to look at the monster that had suddenly shown up. At least two thirds of the whole village had gathered on the shore. People were chattering excitedly and pointing at the middle of the lake, where some real devilry was indeed going on!

Something incredibly big, looking like neither a human nor an animal, was tearing around on the surface of the lake at a truly insane speed about a hundred metres from us, disappearing underwater now and then and bursting out again with a loud splash and spray flying far in all directions. And all the while the monster was making very thin squeaky sounds that turned into strangled wheezing. The sight was so impressive and mesmerising that I couldn't take my eyes off it. Nor, by the way, could anyone else gathered on the shore. And the whole thing hit its peak when the monster, having vanished underwater once again, suddenly rushed straight towards us.

It looked like a torpedo fired from a warship. You can't see the torpedo itself, only a surge of water on the surface, waves spreading out from it and a long foamy trail. I actually got the shivers. Some woman standing near me started screaming hysterically. Probably a moment more and we'd all have run for our lives in every direction, but the next instant the "torpedo" braked sharply, turned 180 degrees and raced back towards the centre of the lake. I breathed a sigh of relief, and I don't think I was the only one.

The Water Spirit's "dancing" went on for at least another half hour, and then it disappeared underwater for good and didn't show up again for the rest of the day.

The mysterious incident on the lake would probably have stayed unsolved and maybe later joined the list of local legends, if the next morning a village fisherman hadn't seen from his boat… a dead man lying on the bottom of the lake!

As usual, I turned up when things were already in full swing. On the shore two young guys were putting on scuba gear, the village policeman was bustling about nearby, and through the crowd, which had grown even bigger compared to the previous morning, walked the very fisherman who had found the drowned man, telling his story to anyone who wanted to hear it:

"So I rowed my boat out to the spot I'd baited the evening before, cast my rods, and I look, and right under me, on the bottom, there he is, lying there. All naked, white, with his arms flung out to the sides like this!"

…After a while the scuba divers hauled the "drowned man" ashore, to the admiring exclamations of the crowd that had gathered and the local police officer's caustic remarks aimed at the fisherman, who, surely nursing a heavy hangover, had mistaken for a corpse… a wild goose and a catfish of enormous size clamped onto it in a death grip!

It turns out that it was their fight to the death we had seen the day before and taken for the incredible dance of a raging Water Spirit. Though there's plenty that's incredible in this story too. First, the catfish itself is astonishing: it turned out to be almost two meters long. And second, there's the fight between this monster fish and the goose, which went on for several hours straight, and that alone is genuinely amazing and, to put it bluntly, quietly terrifying! A goose is no small bird, after all, and a fairly strong one.

Two days later my vacation came to an end. Driving past the lake, I noticed that its shores were empty. Nobody was swimming, nobody was sitting with a fishing rod. The bloodthirsty catfish, which may well have left behind relatives in the lake just as huge, had frightened the villagers more than the fairy-tale Water Spirit ever did!"