Giant Freshwater Stingray Weighs in at 747 Pounds
Takes 13 Men to Catch
Metro.co.uk reports in its article, "Giant stingray battles 13 men and loses," that a fishing professional, Ian Welch, landed this stingray in Thailand.
Actually, it is unfair to give Mr. Welch all the credit. It took 13 men to get the stingray into the boat.
The catch broke the standing freshwater rod-caught fish. The amazing stingray weighed in at 771 pounds eclipsing the previous record of 646 pounds. It was a catfish caught in 2005.
Mr. Welch is freshwater biologist and was tagging stingrays. According to the article the ray pulled him across the boat and nearly took him into the water but his comrades held on to him and then helped him get it into the boat.
The pregnant stingray was admired, tagged and released back into the Mae Klong River.
If you check out the reference you will see a picture of the giant stingray.
In doing further research I found that Mae Klong River, while battling pollution, has incredible places for tourism.
One place along the river is the Khao Yee San Village. It has incredible artifacts, beautiful monasteries, and archaeological digs and is a source of catfish, large catfish.
A cursory inspection of the internet yields the fact that large freshwater stingrays and long battles to get them caught are not a rare thing. From Florida to Thailand, these stingrays living in freshwater are adapt at burying themselves in the bottom of the river and eluding capture from man and other natural predators.
I have seen stingrays both in captivity in the zoo in Minnesota where you could actually pet them as they swam by you in a shallow pool. They love that by the way.
I also saw stingrays in the Gulf of Tonkin which I stayed away from because, well, I was scared.
Stingrays are often approached on vacations. They are typically docile and do seem to like people and, the accompanying tactile involvement. However, they are wild and they do have the capability of killing a human if startled.
References:
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Giant_stingray_battles_13_men_and_loses&in_article_id=554829&in_page_id=34
http://www.thaifolk.com/doc/attract/yeesarn/yeesarn_e.ash
Published by Gary Davis
Retired Insurance CEO. Trained in medicine and medicines. Trained in mental health particularly manic depression as well as most illnesses (from medical underwriting. Business owner, business, marketing,... View profile
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- Giant Freshwater Stingray Weighs in at 747 Pounds
6 Comments
Post a CommentThe Giant freshwater stingray caught by Dr.Ian Welch was caught on a research trip with Dr.Zeb Hogan from National Geographic society in addition to scientists from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
All freshwaters tingrays caught by the team are afforded the utmost care and are released after scientific data and samples have been recorded.
We have caught 122 individual captures in a 20 month period and fitted radio tags to several fish to track their movements.
http://www.fishsiam.com/
Thank you for comments. Should anyone else visit who finds this treatment barbaric I would be interested in your opinions on abortion. I am doing a study in this area on public opinion.
HOW SAD THAT WE HAVE COME TO THINK IT IS OK TO TORTURE AND CAPTURE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL BEING FOR 90 MINUTES!THEN YOU PUT THE STING RAY BACK?!FIND SOMETHING MORE MEANINGFUL TO DO WITH YOUR SPARE TIME.THIS STING RAY WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!
SHAME ON THESE MEN FOR NEEDING AN EGO BOOST.THESE KIND OF ADVENTURES RIP THE INSIDE OF THE STING RAYS MOUTH,AND SHE MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO EAT AGAIN.REAL MEN HAVE COMPASSION!!
We visited StringRay City in Grand Cayman and had a blast swimming with the stingrays! Our kids can't wait to go back! I can't imagine how big a 750 stingray would be-some of the ones we touched were really big but no where near that huge!
Amazing size! Sad to say, I can't help thinking of the Crocodile Hunter and how he met such an eerie death as he followed a stingray.