But as the roads came to Chiang Khong and word of the catfish spread to Thailand’s cities, people began paying top dollar for the giant fish. With over 20 years’ experience in the field of travel and cruise industry, combined with authentic local insights, we will help you make the best of your Mekong cruise. Somkiat Khuanchiangsa, coordinator of the Mekong-Lanna Natural Resource and Cultural Conservation Network, a local environmental group, worked with the IUCN’s Tawatchai Rattanasorn to help convince Boonrien and other club members that it was time to start conserving the catfish. Recorded specimens have measured 3 m in length and weighed as much as 250 kg. The main food for catfish is zooplankton, juveniles, fibrous algae, and accidentally some ingest larvae.

[4] The P. sanitwongsei was also recently found in South Africa, and is suspected to be brought and released there illegally. 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2009-2.RLTS.T15945A5324983.en, "Threatened fishes of the world: Pangasius sanitwongsei Smith 1931 (Siluriformes: Pangasiidae)", "First record of the giant pangasius, pangasius sanitwongsei (actinopterygii: siluriformes: pangasiidae), from Central Anatolia, Turkey", "First record of an introduction of the giant pangasius, Pangasius sanitwongsei Smith 1931, into an African river", "Severe drought puts spotlight on Chinese dams", "Descriptions of new genera and species of Siamese fishes", "Breeding of Chao Phaya giant catfish (Pangasius Sanitwongsei)", "Species identification of non-hybrid and hybrid Pangasiid catfish using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism", "Genetic diversity of the vulnerable Pangasius sanitwongsei using microsatellite DNA and 16S rRNA", "Disappearing giants: a review of threats to freshwater megafauna", “Short body” อีกหนึ่งสีสันของปลาน้ำจืดไทย, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Giant_pangasius&oldid=964158218, IUCN Red List critically endangered species, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 23 June 2020, at 22:19. However, as they get older and they mature those will disappear. But in June 2006, after two years of negotiations with local environmentalists, IUCN, WWF Thailand and Thailand’s Department of Fisheries, the fishers of northern Thailand’s Chiang Khong declared an end to giant catfish catching. Attaining an unconfirmed length of 3 m (9.8 ft), the Mekong giant catfish grows extremely quickly, reaching a mass of 150 to 200 kg (330 to 440 lb) in six years.

[1], The specific name sanitwongsei was chosen to honor M. R. Suwaphan Sanitwong (Thai: ม.ร.ว.สุวพรรณ สนิทวงศ์) for his support of fisheries in Thailand. Ranging from the waters of Cambodia north to Chiang Khong in the upper Mekong, the it is one of the largest freshwater fish in the world.

What else can you expect from the Mekong river? “But we all realized that the Mekong had changed, so we needed to think about management and maybe stop hunting for a while.” If the catfish were given time to recover, they argued, fishing might once again be allowed to resume. According to the fishermen, during the dry season, adult fish will usually stay in the deep part of the river.

They spawn in rapids threatened by shipping and take refuge in deep pools being filled in as dams are built upstream. Catfish naturally lives in the Mekong basin in Vietnam to the north of the river in China’s Yunnan province. [15] The number of eggs per each spawning is around 600 (with a diameter of 2-2.5mm) and the brood shows low genetic variation. Local environmentalists rallied to the catfish’s cause, not only for the fish’s sake, but as a potent symbol of the Mekong’s ecological well-being. It wasn’t easy. Barbels are present on the juveniles. For now, you might be amazed at how big and special Mekong river fish species are, right? Most specimens do not reach their full size without an extremely large aquarium or pond.

Efforts are still underway to convince fishers on the Lao side of the Mekong to give up giant catfish.

There is even a "balloon" form of this fish where the fish has an unusually short and stocky body.
(2012). [10] The anal fin has 26 rays and the pectoral spine is similar in size to the dorsal spine and also shows serrations. [7] The fish live in rivers but are experiencing endangerment due to dams being built, causing the fish to be trapped and unable to migrate. Their maximum length and weight of this fish can reach 2.4 m and 250 kg. It is a species of freshwater stingrays setting in the Indochinese peninsula and Borneo island of Indonesia. [32] The fish is being threatened by overharvesting, damming rivers, and pollution. 41C Tay Ho Road, Tay Ho District, Hanoi, Vietnam. These are most special fish species in Mekong river. Among the most unique type, you can have Giant freshwater stingrays with its’ scientific nomenclature being Himantura polylepis. You can easily catch the fish of over 1.5 m long and more than 45 kg in weight as the large fish are now very rare. It has a wide, flat, whiskerless head. [13], These fish sometimes appear in the aquarium fish hobby.

It wasn’t so long ago that the giant catfish was the target of an annual hunt that left the species critically endangered. Its dorsal, adipose, pectoral, and caudal fins are a dark grey to black coloring, with its anal fin and pelvic fins a white to grey coloring. It is believed that they live all year round in the Mekong mainstream because their food sources are aquatic animals living in the bottom water. Watch as a Thai community rescues a 440-pound Mekong giant catfish displaced by flooding in 2017. [14], This species reproduces sexually, and the eggs and sperm are usually released in a muddier area to prevent eggs from sticking to each other. It takes more than three men using nets as long as 200 m to land one. The giant pangasius, paroon shark, pangasid-catfish or Chao Phraya giant catfish (Pangasius sanitwongsei) is a species of freshwater fish in the shark catfish family (Pangasiidae) of order Siluriformes, found in the Chao Phraya and Mekong basins in Indochina.Its populations have declined drastically, mainly due to overfishing, and it is now considered Critically Endangered. In place of the hunt, Chiang Khong has launched an annual giant catfish festival coinciding with the Buddhist New Year festivities. Whether the ban will last long enough to allow the catfish to recover will require continued effort, however. While the Giant Catfish Club recorded 33 catches in 1990, by 2000 it wasn’t able to catch a single fish. Luxury Cruise Mekong is a reliable one-stop-shop for travelers who love to cruise and travel the Mekong River in style and at your own pace. It is a species of freshwater stingrays setting in the Indochinese peninsula and Borneo island of Indonesia. Grey to white in colour and lacking stripes, the Mekong giant catfish is distinguished from other large catfish species in the river by the near-total lack of barbels and the absence of teeth. This fish mainly eat plants like algae, phytoplankton. The Mekong River flows through many Asian countries, descending into Vietnam with the name of the Mekong River. There were roast chickens and rice, pig’s heads and beer – all borne in a solemn procession as offerings to an unlikely recipient, the Mekong giant catfish. Boonrien Jinaraj, who founded Chiang Khong’s Giant Catfish Club 30 years ago, is certain that before people started measuring the catfish that he caught one that weighed at least 290 kg. Its body is compressed and elongate, with a depressed head. [12] Full-grown adults can reach 300 centimetres (9.8 ft) SL in length and weigh up to 300 kg (660 lb). Recorded specimens have measured 3 m in length and weighed as much as 250 kg. Let’s find out some unique marine animals in this river. The Mekong giant catfish once held the Guinness World Records' position for the world's largest freshwater fish in 2005. [8], The giant pangasius is pigmented with dusky melanophores. Flagfish or Pla Thepa fish can reach a mass of 200 kg, while their greatest body length is 3 m. Distributed in the lower Mekong River, flagfish can be found in China and Myanmar regions. 440-pound giant catfish saved. They are even listed as a rare species in the IUCN Red List. “Hunting was a way of life,” said Somkiat, and the 68 families of the Giant Catfish Club considered it part of their culture as well as an important source of occasional income. [5], The Pangasius sanitwongsei is tolerant in poor quality water[6] and prefers to live in the bottom of deep depressions in freshwater rivers. Here is another impressive fish that you can luckily get once you fishing in the Mekong. [16] There is no parental care after spawning. One catfish can fetch anywhere from US$1,500 to US$3,000, more than the average Thai earns in a year. The color of the Mekong Giant Catfish is a light gray with silver at the top. [19], The P. sanitwongsei is a carnivorous fish, whose prey consist of shrimp, crabs, and fish. Its dorsal, pectoral and pelvic fins are dark gray and the first soft ray is extended into a filament.