I want you to come with me on a journey
under water to see a world of colossal
creatures real-life Loch Ness monsters
tonight I would like to tell you the
story a story of a ten year scientific
adventure to six continents on the
search to find study and protect the
world’s largest freshwater fish
strangely enough this is what my world
looked like when I was growing up I
asked my mom to find some photos of me
uh fishing or doing something with fish
and this is what she sent me this was my
childhood luckily not every place in
Arizona is as dry as the area where I
grew up
this is Havasu Creek two tributary of
the Colorado it flows into the Grand
Canyon and I as a undergraduate at the
University of Arizona my job as part of
this larger team was to do surveys fish
surveys of the tributaries that flow
into the Colorado that’s when I really
fell in love with water and learn to
sympathize more with with fish so on the
Colorado I learned about endangered
species issues and most of the native
fish of the Colorado that live in the
Grand Canyon are endangered one of the
reasons these fish are endangered are
because of all the dams that have been
built on the Colorado and those dams
have completely changed the Colorado
River and I also learned about
large-scale restoration projects at that
time I don’t know if anyone has been
watching the news but they were doing
what they call controlled floods
releasing huge pulses of water down the
Colorado to try to mimic the natural
cycle the natural seasonal cycle of the
river and I learned how difficult it is
to restore a habitat that’s been
modified as heavily as a place like the
Colorado
so I after I graduated from the
University of Arizona I took that
knowledge and applied for a Fulbright
scholarship to Thailand and spent a year
in Thailand
applying those same lessons to fish in
the Mekong the Mekong is actually home
to the largest inland fishery in the
world over 2 million tons of fish come
from the Mekong every year in Thailand I
saw this 3,000 year old cave painting I
don’t know if anyone can recognize
what’s on the top there but giant
catfish 3,000 years ago people were
painting giant catfish and Thailand
shows you how important these fish were
I mean they paint themselves and then
the next thing they can think of the
paint is these big catfish they must
have been important as it turns out the
Mekong has more species of giant fish
than any river in the world and it has
species like the giant carp a 600-pound
goldfish the goonch catfish you know
such a strange-looking catfish the
little beady cat’s eyes and nail like
teeth and I heard stories of stingray
giant powerful stingray reported to grow
up to a thousand pounds and then things
really took a turn when this fish was
caught this is a six hundred and forty
six pound Mekong giant catfish and it
was caught in northern Thailand in 2005
the fishermen here have been recording
their catches since 1980 and it turns
out that this was the largest freshwater
the largest giant catfish that they had
ever caught some people thought that
this might be the largest freshwater
fish in the world
so after this news went out I was
waiting to hear back from people from
different from the Amazon from Australia
from different places with reports of
larger fish but I didn’t I didn’t hear
anything we don’t know what the world’s
largest freshwater fish is one guy did
get back to me
he said he caught a bigger fish than I
did and this it’s an important lesson
because fishermen you got a beak you got
to watch out for fishermen because of
stuff like this cuz photoshop’s pretty
easy these days that actually makes the
project more complicated because if you
go online or you start looking at
pictures you start trying to get
information there are some some people
that exaggerate out there this is a
photo and it’s labeled Naga of the
Mekong Laos 1973 when I was doing my
first start of my research you see this
photo everywhere in Southeast Asia and
the Naga is a is a mythical creature in
Southeast Asia like the Loch Ness
monster that you see depicted on at on
temples but as it turns out this photo
was taken in San Diego in 1991 and
somebody took the photo and and
repurposed it and took it over to Asia
and sold it to everyone over there and
so now people think that this is a fish
a freshwater fish that lives in the
Mekong it’s actually I don’t know if
anyone recognizes it
it’s an oarfish it’s a marine fish that
washed up on the beach in San Diego and
these are some military guys who found
the fish washed up and they’re holding
it up for the camera
you
under water to see a world of colossal
creatures real-life Loch Ness monsters
tonight I would like to tell you the
story a story of a ten year scientific
adventure to six continents on the
search to find study and protect the
world’s largest freshwater fish
strangely enough this is what my world
looked like when I was growing up I
asked my mom to find some photos of me
uh fishing or doing something with fish
and this is what she sent me this was my
childhood luckily not every place in
Arizona is as dry as the area where I
grew up
this is Havasu Creek two tributary of
the Colorado it flows into the Grand
Canyon and I as a undergraduate at the
University of Arizona my job as part of
this larger team was to do surveys fish
surveys of the tributaries that flow
into the Colorado that’s when I really
fell in love with water and learn to
sympathize more with with fish so on the
Colorado I learned about endangered
species issues and most of the native
fish of the Colorado that live in the
Grand Canyon are endangered one of the
reasons these fish are endangered are
because of all the dams that have been
built on the Colorado and those dams
have completely changed the Colorado
River and I also learned about
large-scale restoration projects at that
time I don’t know if anyone has been
watching the news but they were doing
what they call controlled floods
releasing huge pulses of water down the
Colorado to try to mimic the natural
cycle the natural seasonal cycle of the
river and I learned how difficult it is
to restore a habitat that’s been
modified as heavily as a place like the
Colorado
so I after I graduated from the
University of Arizona I took that
knowledge and applied for a Fulbright
scholarship to Thailand and spent a year
in Thailand
applying those same lessons to fish in
the Mekong the Mekong is actually home
to the largest inland fishery in the
world over 2 million tons of fish come
from the Mekong every year in Thailand I
saw this 3,000 year old cave painting I
don’t know if anyone can recognize
what’s on the top there but giant
catfish 3,000 years ago people were
painting giant catfish and Thailand
shows you how important these fish were
I mean they paint themselves and then
the next thing they can think of the
paint is these big catfish they must
have been important as it turns out the
Mekong has more species of giant fish
than any river in the world and it has
species like the giant carp a 600-pound
goldfish the goonch catfish you know
such a strange-looking catfish the
little beady cat’s eyes and nail like
teeth and I heard stories of stingray
giant powerful stingray reported to grow
up to a thousand pounds and then things
really took a turn when this fish was
caught this is a six hundred and forty
six pound Mekong giant catfish and it
was caught in northern Thailand in 2005
the fishermen here have been recording
their catches since 1980 and it turns
out that this was the largest freshwater
the largest giant catfish that they had
ever caught some people thought that
this might be the largest freshwater
fish in the world
so after this news went out I was
waiting to hear back from people from
different from the Amazon from Australia
from different places with reports of
larger fish but I didn’t I didn’t hear
anything we don’t know what the world’s
largest freshwater fish is one guy did
get back to me
he said he caught a bigger fish than I
did and this it’s an important lesson
because fishermen you got a beak you got
to watch out for fishermen because of
stuff like this cuz photoshop’s pretty
easy these days that actually makes the
project more complicated because if you
go online or you start looking at
pictures you start trying to get
information there are some some people
that exaggerate out there this is a
photo and it’s labeled Naga of the
Mekong Laos 1973 when I was doing my
first start of my research you see this
photo everywhere in Southeast Asia and
the Naga is a is a mythical creature in
Southeast Asia like the Loch Ness
monster that you see depicted on at on
temples but as it turns out this photo
was taken in San Diego in 1991 and
somebody took the photo and and
repurposed it and took it over to Asia
and sold it to everyone over there and
so now people think that this is a fish
a freshwater fish that lives in the
Mekong it’s actually I don’t know if
anyone recognizes it
it’s an oarfish it’s a marine fish that
washed up on the beach in San Diego and
these are some military guys who found
the fish washed up and they’re holding
it up for the camera
you
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