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Just after dawn on May 5, scientists working along the Mekong River in Cambodia released a giant, endangered freshwater stingray caught by a fisherman’s hook. At 13 feet long and 400 pounds, the giant animal pancake was larger than a hibachi table.
“She was shaking and I said to her, ‘Calm down, we’re going to release you soon,’” said coordinator Chea Seila. Mekong Project Wonders.
Giant freshwater stingray, Urogymnus polylepis, It is the largest species of stingray in the world, also known as the whip. With dark brown tops and creamy white bottoms, the animals glide along river beds in search of fish and invertebrates. While they may have reached epic proportions, overharvesting for stingray meat, accidental deaths and habitat fragmentation in fishing nets, and degradation from dams, pollution and other human activities have endangered the animals.
After receiving a call from the fisherman who caught the stingray, Ms. Chea and her crew drove eight hours through the night to help release the stingray. They arrived at 3 o’clock and waited with the fishes until the sun came up. Armed with a venomous spine that could be a foot long, more people were needed to move the animal with precision. bone-piercing.
Before releasing her stingray, Ms. Chea and her colleagues took non-invasive specimens to aid future studies of the species. Later, they helped bring the giant back into the depths of the Mekong.
“She calmly swam away, but then reappeared, which made us very, very happy,” Ms. Chea said.
Experts said it was extraordinary that a stingray of this size could still be found in these waters.
“It shows that nature is very beautiful, but also resilient,” he said. Sudeep Chandra, a limnologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, and associate scientist on the Mekong Project Wonders. “Despite major environmental problems in the Lower Mekong such as dams, forest change and overfishing, these large, charismatic species are still there and want to survive.”
“Of course, it doesn’t always turn out that way,” said Ms. Chea. People living along the Mekong rely on the bounty of the river for food and income. There are plenty of stories in these communities about much larger rays broken into small pieces for sale at the local market, she said. In fact, Ms. Chea said that another giant stingray was caught in April. However, he was already dead when they found him.
Giant freshwater stingrays aren’t the only gigantic and endangered creatures along the river that need protection. also home giant soft-shelled turtles, Mekong giant catfish and giant thorn, a type of fish. The Wonders of the Mekong partnership is working with scientists to better understand the habitat.
Much of what is known about major rivers as an ecosystem comes from the Mississippi River and rivers across Europe. However, Dr. Chandra said these are all in temperate zones. In contrast, the Mekong is tropical and prone to major, seasonal flooding. This gives the Mekong a dynamic and often unexamined ecology, he said.
For example, Dr. Chandra and his team were surprised to discover recently that there are hidden pools more than 250 feet below the surface of the Mekong. If you could somehow sink the Statue of Liberty and its pedestal into one of these cliffs, only the torch would remain above the water.
Such ponds are likely to play an important role in the life cycle of river giants. With underwater divers, environmental DNA sampling and sensors that can provide real-time information about the river’s changes, scientists working with the Mekong Wonders Project hope to learn more about these habitats and protect them from environmental threats.
Ms. Chea has been working in these communities since 2005, building trust and partnerships between the project and the people who share the river with these species. And that work seems to be paying off, she. Now, when someone accidentally pulls on a giant creature, it can reach for a phone instead of a fillet knife.
Ms. Chea said that a local leader told her she had never seen a giant freshwater stingray. And during the evacuation, she watched him talk to two young men.
He said that he heard him introduce the animal to them and said, “You have to protect it so that in the future your children will know that there is a giant stingray in our village.”
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