Catfish keep making headlines. Even dachshunds are said to have devoured the predatory fish. Legend or not, a catfish really struck spectacularly in Göttingen.
Göttingen – An American red-eared turtle has become the undoing of a large catfish in the Göttingen Kiessee. Paddlers found the predatory fish that was floating on the bank area, but still alive. The turtle’s rear and legs protruded from its mouth.
The prey and the hunter had dogged themselves in their agony. “That was a stalemate. The catfish has probably taken over something with the turtle, ”said Marc Stemmwedel from Sportangelklub Göttingen eV, describing the situation. The “Göttinger Tageblatt” and other newspapers reported on the case first.
The ornithologist Mathias Siebner was at the Kiessee on Wednesday to photograph birds. He had been made aware of the drifting catfish by paddlers. At first they tried to maneuver the catfish ashore with a paddle. “It wasn’t that easy because the fish was slippery,” says Siebner. In the end, however, it was possible to hoist the catfish ashore with a rope. The animal measured a stately 1.40 meters with a weight of about 35 to 40 kilograms.
But it wasn’t the size that was special, but the last catch of the predatory fish. Parts of the turtle that the catfish wanted to eat as prey hung from its mouth. When anglers looked through the gill cover, they saw that the turtle had bitten into the fish’s gills. In the agony she apparently defended herself.
The fish was still twitching. “But he could no longer be saved and would not have survived,” said Stemmwedel. After the fight he was already more dead than alive. Anglers finally put an end to the suffering with a targeted hit on the head.
It is known that catfish live in the shallow waters of the Kiessee. Now and then some are spotted. Encounters between swimmers and catfish are highly unlikely. On the one hand, the scaleless animals are shy, on the other hand, swimming in the lake is not allowed at all.
At 1.40 meters, the catfish on Wednesday was quite large, but not that huge either, because catfish can be three meters long and weigh 250 kilos. They are the largest native freshwater fish and eat fish, frogs, crabs, and sometimes a duck or rats.
An almost equally large relative of the Göttingen catfish achieved international media fame under the name “Kuno the killer catfish” in Mönchengladbach 20 years ago. The catfish living in the Volkspark-Weiher was said to have swallowed a young wire-haired dachshund. In 2003 a catfish was discovered drifting “keel-praising” in the said water. It was quickly assumed that it was “Kuno”. It was stuffed and put in a museum.
The Göttingen catfish does not have to expect to be stuffed. Angler Stemmwedel assured that the fish had been “sensibly” recycled and not ended up in the rubbish bin. The almost boneless catfish are highly valued as food fish. dpa
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