The Mekong giant carp reaches over one meter in length and weighs 30 kilograms. But scientists have recorded this fish only 30 times, which is why they nicknamed it the “Mekong ghost”, after the Southeast Asian river that was its habitat.
In 2020, a fisherman in northern Cambodia caught a fish with a smooth silver back, a yellow eye stripe and a pronounced curved jaw. The fish was sold to traders in Vietnam, but other fishermen in the same region of the country reported their own sightings in 2022 and 2023.
The news of the survival of the giant carp in the Mekong has become a “call to action” for the fisheries conservation community in Cambodia and Southeast Asia to start efforts to find and protect the species, reports Noi.md with reference to unian.
Salmon carp, which are migratory, also exist elsewhere. Scientists believe that the probability is high. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that 19% of the more than 1,100 fish species in the Mekong River are on the verge of extinction.
If the Mekong giant salmon carp were to disappear, it would be the first of more than a dozen species of megafish in the river, weighing more than 30 kilograms, to suffer that fate. After its rediscovery, it is currently considered the most endangered fish in the river.
The reappearance of the giant Mekong carp salmon symbolizes the “vast and endangered diversity of freshwater fish” throughout the Mekong River and the urgent need to protect it.
