Goonch catfish: Monster from the dirty rivers of Asia
Once he senses your presence in the water, you will no longer have a chance to survive. In these waters, he is the master; he is the real Lord and Horror of the Depths. There are monstrous legends about him, thousands of deaths are attributed to him. And science is still not exactly sure if he exists at all. They call him a "murderer", "thug", "river devil" ... but how much truth is there in these stories? Let's find out. Our guest today is man-eater goonch catfish.
Encounters with goonches are reported from various regions of India, Nepal, China and Vietnam. Fishermen often get lucky enough to catch it. But this luck is doubtful, because its meat is tasteless, smelly and spoils almost instantly. Only in the most hungry regions of India, the idea “the main thing is not the quality of food, but its quantity” works the best, so every year hundreds of people are poisoned by rotten goonch meat. Yes, this "serial killer" can kill even after his own death...
For local fishermen and visiting thrill-seekers goonch is a valuable trophy. And now, when they get him ashore, he appears in all his monstrous grandeur. A huge slippery carcass, a giant head, the largest among all catfish, and a wide mouth with fangs curved inward. The giant catfish weighs up to 100 kilograms. However, local newspapers regularly report on the catch of goonches weighing 150 or even 200 kg.
In Asian waters, its small copy is found that is no more than 20 centimeters long - the dwarf goonch. So, some scientists believe that the giant goonch is an adult version of the pygmy goonch. Just under certain circumstances, it grows into a fish 2 meters long.
Regarding the danger to humans, everything is also not so clear. Catfish feed on crayfish, fish, amphibians and small mammals that have fallen into the water. They love rotten meat very much and enjoy carrion with pleasure. The latter factor became the reason for accusing the "river devil" of human casualties.
The fact is that in India the ancient custom of ritual burning of the dead is still widespread, after which the remains are dumped into the river. After a series of mysterious disappearances of people in the area of the Mahakali River, it was suggested that the catfish became addicted to human meat from the fires and now switched from rotten meat to, so to speak, a "healthy diet".
Since then, over every case of the disappearance of people in the jungle, the shadow of a killer catfish has “wandered”. There is no documentary evidence of goonch attacks on people.
The topic of killer catfish was popularized by the British extreme fisherman Jeremy Wade, the host of the documentary series River Monsters. The program talked about the incident on the Kali River, when between 1998 and 2007 dozens of people disappeared and livestock disappeared: all witnesses reported that they were dragged under water by a "huge river pig".
And while everyone is talking about the threat of the river monster to people, the monster itself is under the threat of extinction. Due to their secretive way of life in turbulent waters among impenetrable jungles, Goonch researchers cannot even determine the approximate size of their population. We don't know how many are left, but we do know that giant catfish encounters are becoming rarer and there must be reasons for this. And while the population of India is gradually exceeding, the “river killer”, which terrified the whole country, has already appeared in the Red List.
In some tribal communities of India, there is a cult of the killer catfish: he is worshiped as a deity and called the "Shark of Bastar" (the name of the region). It is strictly forbidden to hunt goonches here, it is considered a crime. There have even been attempts to make it the official symbol of the state of Chhattisgarh. Maybe at least there the "water devil" can find a safe haven. After all, it turned out that the devil is not so scary at all.
