This ‘Alien Fish’ Just Busted The World-Record
50-year-old fisherman Bryan Baker was just off the shore of Grand Lake o’ the Cherokees in Oklahoma when he felt a tug on his line that he’ll never forget. After seven long minutes of an intense fight, Baker pulled up a giant 118 pound bighead carp – about the size of an average 14 year old boy.
This was no ordinary catch though; it not only destroyed the previous world record for this type of fish at 90 pounds but also contained 11 million eggs inside its body. As incredible as this story is already, what makes it even more impressive is how Baker inadvertently prevented what could have been a major ecological disaster from occurring.
Bighead carp are considered to be invasive alien species by experts and their consumption of plankton can cause serious issues for the aquatic communities they inhabit. When these fish reproduce – which happens very quickly – they can take away resources needed by native species to survive, potentially leading to an environmental crisis.
Fortunately for us all, this was not the case here. By catching this large bighead carp before it had a chance to reproduce any further, Bryan Baker helped protect local native fish populations from having their food resources taken away.
Quinton Phelps is professor of Ichthyology at Missouri State University and has held “tens of thousands” of freshwater fish during his career but none compare with what he saw when he witnessed Bryan Baker’s enormous catch first hand. Phelps said “This is hands down the biggest freshwater fish I have ever seen in person…it looks fake but it’s not.”
He went on to explain that while we may never know just how much damage this particular bighead carp would have caused had it been allowed to reproduce any further. One thing remains certain: Bryan Baker prevented a potential ecological disaster from occurring with his record breaking catch and should be commended for doing so.
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