Mammoth fish of Amazon: Arapaima goes missing gradually

Arapaima fish which measures 10 feet (3 meters) long and weighing about 400 pound (180 kgs) is considered the largest fish on the Amazon basin are depleting gradually. It’s surprising how a massive fish goes on missing.

A recent article based on the study of fishing communities in Amazon Brazil, states that this large fish is non-existent in few parts of the Amazon Basin. And remaining parts reports a major fall off of these fishes.

Scientifically named Arapaima gigas, pertains the characteristic of breathing in air. A major reason contributing to this feature is that it dwells in oxygen- poor waterways according to Tennessee Aquarium.

“Arapaima breeds on the extremity of floodplain forests and appears on the surface to breathe periodically every 5 to 15 minutes and this is the time when they are targeted easily and hunted by fishers with their own home made canoes,” stated by Caroline Arantes, a doctoral student in wildlife and fisheries science at Texas A&M University in College Station, who helped in this research conduct.

Among five species known of Arapaima, three are already lost or unnoticed for a decade and a century ago all of the five species were dwelling here.

“Saddest part of all is, that in spite of the extinction of these, fishers are continuously harvesting these fishes,” said study leader Leandro Castello, an assistant professor of fisheries at Virginia’s Tech College of Natural Resources and Environment, in Blacksburg.

Interestingly Arapaima are not killed in the usual way as the other fishes are harvested instead of that fishers are formulating their own way of preying them using gill nets for the smaller one. Local fishers are not intended to kill the smaller fishes but still while harvesting them, end up killing whatever comes in their way and hence there is large scale depletion.

There is good news along with it, few communities have framed rules such as banning on use of gill nets and restricting minimum capture size for arapaima, is seen to have 100 times more density of these fishes than others, were there are no restrictions for fishing.

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Karen Jackson

Karen Jackson has always been passionate about technology. All the way through high-school she immersed herself in computers and web-design. Her ambitious nature helped her become a pro in Adobe Photoshop only by watching online videos and working with the program herself. This is also the program that she mostly uses in the creation of websites at her work-place. Technological innovation and gadgets that push the boundaries of what we are comfortable with have always fascinated her, so expect to see some weird gadget reviews coming from her.