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River.Monsters.S04E05.Russian.Killer
Transcript
00:01My name is Jeremy Wade. I'm an explorer and fishing detective.
00:07I'm always on the lookout for mysterious fishy tales that don't quite add up.
00:12Careful, careful, careful!
00:15And one such story that I've just heard about from the far wild east of Russia has really snagged my interest.
00:22A fishing trip gone horribly wrong.
00:25Three men mysteriously disappear on a remote and wild river in Russia.
00:30It has all the hallmarks of a classic river monsters investigation.
00:34Telltale clues that this was not just a simple fishing accident.
00:38I believe they encountered something in the water.
00:41Something big enough and terrible enough to cause the death of not just one man, but of all three.
00:55October 2009. The Amur River in the far wild east of Russia.
01:15Three men set out on a fishing trip.
01:18It's the kind of trip they've made many times before.
01:30Only this time is different.
01:41This time, they never return.
01:48A year later, the bodies of two of the men are found, or what's left of them.
02:02Long dead, apparently drowned.
02:05The third body is never recovered.
02:08Over the years, there have been many rumours of disappearances, deaths and monsters connected with the Amur River.
02:19But it's impossible to get any more information.
02:22It's as if there's something in the water that they don't want the outside world to know about.
02:27So I've had nothing concrete to go on.
02:31Until now.
02:39Russia is a place I've never been to before.
02:42It's the largest country in the world.
02:45And the Amur is the world's tenth longest river.
02:48At 2700 miles, it's nearly twice as long as the Colorado.
02:59The region is home to some of the largest land predators.
03:03Tigers and bears.
03:05But what's in the river?
03:07Legend has it, the river was carved out by a huge black dragon as it dragged its body from the sea.
03:19And something still lurks in its depths.
03:22Killing fishermen to this day, I want to find out what it is.
03:26What I need are facts.
03:31And after three days of travelling, I arrive at the town of Nikolaevsk, near the river's mouth.
03:38Once a wealthy place, it's now more like a ghost town.
03:47I'm looking for details of what exactly happened to those three fishermen.
03:51In this remote location, where few outsiders travel, getting information is not going to be easy.
04:00So I go fishing.
04:02At a small feeder stream on the outskirts of town.
04:07People in isolated communities can be suspicious of strangers.
04:11So I'm using myself as bait.
04:16To see if the novelty of an outsider might tempt somebody to talk.
04:21I think I just briefly hooked something.
04:27But I don't want to strike too early and reveal that it's information I'm after.
04:31Not until I've gained their trust.
04:42This one?
04:44Okay, blue fox.
04:46Okay, thank you.
04:48Fishing, for me, is often about thinking outside the box.
04:55My efforts are rewarded.
04:57I get an invitation to join them inside their home.
05:00But first, I want to prove that I'm capable of bringing a fish in.
05:03I'm bringing a fish in.
05:23Whoa!
05:24But wherever I fish, I seem to run into competition I wasn't expecting.
05:37I've got a dog here.
05:41No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
05:45I don't want to...
05:47In the Amazon, I've had to compete with Cayman for the fish on the line.
05:52And in Alaska, a bear took my fish, but a dog is a first.
05:57But I don't want a dog with a hook in its mouth.
06:00That would not be...
06:02That would not be fun.
06:12What a lovely fish.
06:14Lovely chum salmon.
06:16Beautiful coloration.
06:18Pink band down the side, those dark spots on the back.
06:20Untold this river is stuffed with salmon.
06:24Interesting.
06:26I think you're starting to see that sort of metamorphosis that they undergo when they come in the rivers.
06:31That sort of hook on the lower jaw, hump of the back there.
06:34A lot of the locals are keeping these for the pot.
06:36I think while nobody's looking, I might slip this one back there.
06:40This catch is significant because no monster can exist without a food supply.
06:46This abundance of salmon would fulfill that role.
06:51I join Igor Poroshin and his friends inside to warm up.
06:57And as we talk, I'm hoping I'll get the information I have come here for.
07:01Does anyone know of the fisherman who disappeared?
07:05The other fish?
07:08The other fish?
07:10The other fish.
07:12The Bay of Russia?
07:14Sure.
07:16After some general fishing chat,
07:17Igor tells me a key fact about the three men who vanished.
07:25Well, I've managed to find out a little bit more.
07:26The fishermen actually weren't from here.
07:28They were from a town a little way further up the river.
07:31With some borrowed transport, I head west to the town of Inokentievka.
07:41With fewer than 5,000 people, this fishing community is one of just a handful along this stretch of the Amur.
07:55There's a tough mix of races and cultures, all brought together for one reason.
08:04Fish.
08:06With such a small population, it shouldn't be too hard to find someone who knew the fishermen.
08:10The man I meet is Aniv, one of the many tribes of indigenous people who originally inhabited this region.
08:25His name is Edward, and his cousin was one of the fishermen who died that day.
08:30Treading gently, I ask about what happened.
08:37His cousin went fishing with two other people a couple of years ago, and they disappeared.
08:45Two bodies were actually found the next year.
08:49The other person hasn't been found.
08:50Very quickly, I eliminate some of the more obvious possibilities.
08:58So this really sounds like something that doesn't have an easy explanation.
09:03One of the guys on the boat was inexperienced, it was his first time out.
09:07But the other two people were very experienced, knew what they were doing.
09:11The boat was designed to be on that kind of water, it's a sea-going boat.
09:14And the weather was nothing out of the ordinary, and three people somehow disappeared.
09:23I ask what they were fishing for, and he's curiously evasive.
09:28They were clearly not fishing for salmon.
09:31This strange conversation leaves me with more questions than answers.
09:35I get the feeling that something's being concealed.
09:38Show me where it happened.
09:40He does, however, agree to show me on the map where they would have been heading.
09:55Well, he's shown me where it happened.
09:56I think what I've got to do now is actually get out on the river.
10:00I have a suspicion that what they were fishing for may somehow be responsible for this tragic event.
10:06There's something lurking in the river that no one wants me to know about.
10:12And I won't leave until I've caught it.
10:24I'm in the far eastern wilds of Russia, investigating a tragic event.
10:30Three fishermen who never returned from a fishing trip.
10:33I've been given the location of where it happened.
10:37My investigation needs to be thorough.
10:40Once all the obvious possibilities have been crossed off, I can take a hard look at the suspects in the water.
10:46And since I've never fished here before, I've no idea what's down there.
10:50Well, this is pretty much where the boat went down.
10:52And just looking around, this isn't the open sea, this is the mouth of the river.
10:57It's relatively sheltered.
10:59Not only that, I'm thinking that if the people on board were even semi-competent swimmers,
11:03they would have had half a chance to reach the shore.
11:06The knowledge of these fishing grounds would have been handed down through generations.
11:10There was something else involved, not just the weather and the water.
11:14So what they were fishing for has to be somehow responsible.
11:19Some fishermen have just stopped by and they've got something in a net that they want me to see.
11:27They've asked not to have their faces shown, further evidence that something suspicious is going on here.
11:40Perhaps they were poaching, but what for?
11:43This is a seal that's got drowned in the net.
11:57I wasn't expecting this.
11:59I had it in my mind that I was about to see a fish.
12:02But could a seal be the monster of the Amur River?
12:06Bearded seals average 600 pounds.
12:08Tangled and thrashing in a net, they are easily big enough to drag a careless fisherman to his death.
12:14So there's lots of them around, apparently, but mainly out in the mouth of the river.
12:20I ask if seals cause fishing accidents.
12:23They reply that they've never heard of that happening.
12:27The thing about nets is they are quite sort of indiscriminate.
12:29I mean, they're obviously fishing for a large animal the size of those meshes.
12:33Far too big for salmon.
12:34So if they weren't trying to catch seals or salmon, then what were they fishing for?
12:40Again, I can't seem to get an answer.
12:45On the surface, people are helpful, but on another level, no one is talking.
12:50This place has a veil of secrecy that I need to penetrate.
12:53Fish markets usually provide me with information.
13:03With none around, I head instead to the fish processing plant.
13:12The vast salmon populations have drawn not just predators like seals to the Amur River, but people as well.
13:19And everyone's involved, young and old, every race and culture in the whole area.
13:25But instead of finding answers, my suspicions only deepen.
13:30People are friendly enough, but again, no one seems to want to give anything away.
13:35Just what is going on?
13:37What is going on?
13:44So once again, I use myself as bait to try and gain their trust.
13:50There are fish off the factory's dock, but I'm not seeing any monsters.
13:54It's not quite, it's a bit roach-like, about four or five ounces.
14:05And it was caught on a hook with a little bit of silver paper attached.
14:13Finally, the plant's manager tells me of a fish that lives just off the dock.
14:18A fish big enough to destroy fisherman's tackle, so it's never been caught.
14:22I take up the challenge.
14:25If this story is right, I'm not taking any chances.
14:29I'm using my monster rod, a wire trace, and line with a breaking strain of 200 pounds.
14:36This place would certainly appeal to a monster.
14:40An easy, fast and ready supply of fish scraps to feast upon.
14:43But with all this free food, will it find my offering appealing?
14:48How many countries have I fished in during my river monster's adventures?
15:06The answer, right after this.
15:07To film river monsters, over the last four years, I've fished in 21 countries, spread over six continents.
15:24I'm in the far east of Russia, on the tenth longest river in the world, the Amur.
15:34A perfect hideout for a monster.
15:37My only lead, according to the people who work here in the salmon processing plant,
15:41is that a monster fish lives just off the dock, fattening up on the waste from the plant.
15:58It's another surprise.
16:03I'll try and swing this in, basically putting a lump of dead fish out by the waste chute at the fish factory.
16:10And I'll just see if I can just swing this in.
16:17That's a catfish, that looks incredibly like a whales catfish, but whales catfish don't exist out here.
16:23But that looks like a very close relative anyway.
16:29Whales catfish grow very big, 200 pounds or so.
16:34If these things grow to that kind of size, that could be the culprit, that could be the fish we're looking at.
16:40I've caught giant whales catfish from the river Ebro in Spain.
16:47Fish so big, they nearly pulled me into the river.
16:50So this is a predator, and the reason it's hanging out here, I guess, is because of all the food, all the dead fish.
17:01And with the annual run of salmon every year, I don't know, it's possible that this species could grow to an interesting size.
17:10It turns out that there are two species of catfish living in the Amur, and one is potentially a true river monster.
17:19Called the Soldatov catfish, after a famous Russian fish biologist, it's said to grow to a similar size as those infamous whales catfish from Europe that I've investigated before.
17:29But very little is actually known about it. Could a giant catfish, fattened on the fish waste from this plant, be the monster of the Amur?
17:39But it's nice to catch a fish, and a predatory fish, out of this river.
17:50I've little doubt that what lives here, and smashes the fisherman's tackle, is a giant overfed one of these.
17:57But is it responsible for the disappearance of three fishermen?
18:00To get more information, one of the lads tells me about a man called Misha.
18:15He's a hunter and fisherman, and I'm curious to know what he thinks about the possibility of a supersized catfish.
18:21This is a story that Misha heard about on the river here. There were two fishermen, went out netting one day, nothing out of the ordinary about that.
18:41But what happened is that they got a very big fish in their net, and he said this was about 700 kilos, about 1500 pounds, very large fish.
18:52And they were trying to pull the net in with the fish in it, so they were over one side of the boat.
18:57This fish was so big that it actually flipped the boat, and they fell into the cold water.
19:10This was in late autumn, and the water was so cold that they actually died.
19:16It's the conclusive evidence I needed that there is a fish big enough here to drown fishermen.
19:22This fish they had in the net, what kind of fish was it?
19:26But what he starts to describe to me is no catfish. It's something even more monstrous.
19:33I'm in the eastern part of Russia to find a river monster that caused the death of three fishermen.
19:54But what is it?
19:56I've discovered the presence of a giant catfish, and I've just heard a report of another incident.
20:00Two fishermen who were dragged to their deaths by a fish of staggering size.
20:09He says it's a very big fish, this one about 1500 pounds, very powerful fish, and it's got a big mouth.
20:191500 pounds is a colossal size.
20:23Can you give me some more details of this fish? Can you describe it to me?
20:25Can you describe it to me?
20:26Can you describe it to me?
20:27Can you describe it to me?
20:28Can you describe it to me?
20:37But the fish he's describing is not a catfish. It's something else entirely.
20:42What he's saying is that in body shape it's very reminiscent of a shark, even though we're talking about a fish here that lives up rivers.
20:51And he says especially the tail, that is quite shark-like.
20:55But it's got running down its back and down its sides, it's got rows of spikes, and he says they're very sharp and you can hurt yourself if you come into contact with those.
21:03And it's got a big mouth. This is a predatory fish that normally feeds on other fish, on smaller fish.
21:12And it's also got these feelers hanging from its snout.
21:15And I put all of that together and to me that says sturgeon.
21:20It doesn't sound like any sturgeon I've heard about before.
21:22This fish they had in the net, what kind of fish was it?
21:32It's a very big fish that flies to the sea. It's a caluga.
21:38Finally, I have a name for my culprit. Caluga.
21:44A monster fish that has killed fishermen in the past.
21:47Could the three men have been drowned trying to wrestle a huge sturgeon into their boat?
21:56A 1500 pound monster would surely be the fish of a lifetime.
22:01But can I catch one?
22:04At least now that I know what I'm after, I can prepare accordingly.
22:07Sturgeon have long, sensitive nasal feelers.
22:15So rather than a wire trace, I use a thin, super tough braided line that's harder to detect.
22:21From my previous sturgeon fishing experience in the US, I know that fish, well not just sturgeon, all fish will hang out in deep water.
22:37If you've got a scoop on the bottom, you tend to get food with the current coming down and it deposits at the upstream end.
22:43It sort of tumbles around in a sort of a vertical eddy and that's the place where any fish would naturally hang out to intercept food coming down.
22:53Out here on this fast river, the dangers are tangible.
22:57It's incredibly deep and the current is stronger than it looks.
23:01It's a place that can and has swallowed up fishermen and left little trace.
23:05Bump on the bottom in a sec.
23:08Right, I can just feel that bumping on the bottom.
23:12Bump.
23:14Bump.
23:18Sturgeon have been on Earth for 200 million years and have hardly changed since the time of the dinosaurs.
23:24Individuals can live as long as 100 years.
23:28Knowing what I know about sturgeon, I'm preparing for anything.
23:31I've caught a 300 pound white sturgeon in Oregon, which took me over half an hour to get in.
23:38White sturgeon are huge, but kaluga apparently can get even bigger.
23:43There it is. There we go, there we go, there we go.
23:46There we go.
23:48White sturgeon can weigh an enormous amount, but kaluga apparently can weigh even more.
23:54The biggest kaluga on record tip the scales at a staggering 2,205 pounds.
24:01Bigger than the heaviest recorded white sturgeon.
24:04They have the potential of being the biggest river monster of all time.
24:10But to catch one, I'm going to have to change the tactics I'd normally use for hunting sturgeon.
24:15Most sturgeon species have a mouth shaped for feeding on the bottom.
24:22But the kaluga is unique in the sturgeon world.
24:27It's an active predator.
24:29With a forward opening mouth, it hunts salmon and other fish, engulfing them in its cavernous jaws.
24:36I'm just going to try something a bit different.
24:38I'm going to try an artificial lure.
24:40Because the kaluga is a predator, it eats small fish.
24:44I'll put something on which, well, that's going to vaguely resemble something alive down there on the bottom.
24:50It's sort of a caricature of a fish, this really.
24:52I'm going to let it fall down to the bottom and we're going to drift with the current
24:56and I'm just going to lift the rod up and down.
24:58And so this is just going to flutter, particularly this tail, it's going to flutter in the water
25:01and it should attract just, you know, the movement and the vibration.
25:06It's the kind of thing that will attract the attention of a predator.
25:20Suddenly it strikes me that there are no other fishermen out here.
25:24And now I find out why.
25:27River police.
25:31I'm politely told that fishing for kaluga is illegal.
25:41If I had caught anything, I'd have been in serious trouble.
25:45Just as I'm starting to make headway in this investigation, this is a real blow.
25:51Here there's no concept of catch and release.
25:54I have to stop fishing.
25:55This would explain why people haven't been talking.
26:02They were breaking the law.
26:04Why are people willing to risk their freedom just to catch a fish?
26:07To unravel this mystery, I go to talk to the head of the Wildlife Protection Authority in this region.
26:23His name is Valentin.
26:24Can you tell me, are there many in the river?
26:34He tells me the Amur was once full of these giants.
26:40The situation in the Soviet area is that there was a ban on fishing for kaluga.
26:51But in the 90s, with the collapse of the USSR, this region saw something of a free-for-all.
26:58And apparently just kaluga came under relentless attack.
27:01The kaluga has nearly been wiped out.
27:05Why is it that people keep fishing for them?
27:07What makes it so valuable, so attractive to the poachers?
27:10I saw the first time in 1992, the price of the kaluga was $2,000.
27:17Just getting my head around the numbers here, the thing that's driving this whole situation is the eggs of the kaluga.
27:22This is a type of sturgeon and it carries caviar.
27:27About 13 to 14% of the body weight of a mature female fish is caviar.
27:33Apparently today in Moscow, one kilo, two pounds of caviar are going to bring in about 500 US dollars.
27:43To a fisherman, this is like striking gold.
27:45For a salmon fisherman here, just one kaluga could bring them the same money as working for three and a half years salmon fishing.
27:56So, I mean, you can absolutely understand the temptation.
27:59And given this level of motivation, Valentin is just not optimistic at all about the future of kaluga in this river.
28:08It does seem very much as if the fish here is doomed.
28:11Later, I find out just how bad this problem really is.
28:17Because of the high value of caviar on the black market, poaching is run by mafia-style organized crime.
28:24People wouldn't talk because they were scared of the repercussions.
28:33Could the three fishermen who disappeared have come across one of the last giants and in the ensuing battle lost their lives?
28:42And perhaps the biggest question, are there any kaluga sturgeon left in the Amur at all?
28:48I'm finding myself in a difficult situation.
28:51I want to see if there are any monsters out there, but the kaluga is protected.
28:57There's a possible way around this.
28:59People here have said that I could go and catch one by accident, but technically this would be poaching even though I'd be putting the fish back alive.
29:07But to catch one like this would be morally wrong.
29:11I'm halfway around the world, I've got the boat, I've got the fishing gear, I've got the food, everything I need.
29:15And I'm just so reluctant to give up having come this far.
29:19So I've been looking into ways, you know, is there any way I can just circumvent this?
29:24And I think I've found a way.
29:26Valentin has put me in touch with a team of scientists here monitoring fish stocks on the Amur.
29:32They've allowed me to join them. This is my only chance of seeing a kaluga, if of course there are any left.
29:43But the first thing I witness is not a fish, but clear proof that poachers haven't given up on trying to find kaluga.
29:50Two boats going at high speed, one after the other on the other side.
30:04And apparently that is a police boat chasing some poachers.
30:09And at the moment I think the poachers are getting away.
30:13The distance between the two boats is lengthening.
30:15The thing about the value of caviar is that with the profits that you make, you can afford a faster boat than what the police have got.
30:24Out here on this vast river, trying to catch anything is going to be hard enough.
30:29But something as rare as a kaluga is going to be almost impossible.
30:33But then they say that about many fish I go in search of.
30:39A lot of people who fish with line all the time have this idea that fishing with nets is very easy.
30:44You just put the net out and you empty out the river.
30:47But it's actually quite technical.
30:50If there's trees, other snags on the bottom, they'll catch on to those.
30:54But also on the boat, you're feeding it out.
30:57It can catch on to bits of the boat, hence the cloth there.
31:00But also bits of clothing as well, buttons, things like that.
31:04I'm only allowed to do this because I'm with a licensed scientific team.
31:06But as we wait for a chance encounter with one of these rare giants, I'm about to witness another side to this disaster.
31:14I'm in Russia tracking down a new river monster, a huge sturgeon called a kaluga.
31:26But I've discovered these fish have been pushed to the edge of extinction by mafia-style organized crime.
31:32My only chance to encounter one of these monsters is with a team of scientists.
31:35But something's wrong out here on the river.
31:36This is actually quite spooky. It looks like a migration of fish. There's all these fins sticking out of the water.
31:45And what it is, it's salmon upside down and their tail fins breaking the surface.
31:50And they're all sort of drifting down with a current. And they're all dead.
31:55Of course, it's normal for salmon to die after spawning.
31:58But it's not a nice crime.
32:00My only chance to encounter one of these monsters is with a team of scientists.
32:04But something's wrong out here on the river.
32:06This is actually quite spooky. It looks like a migration of fish.
32:10There's all these fins sticking out of the water.
32:12And what it is, it's salmon upside down and their tail fins breaking the surface.
32:14After spawning.
32:15I wonder if that's what's happening here.
32:20Even more of what we're seeing too many of.
32:27Dead salmon.
32:29And a lot of them now in fairly advanced stages of decomposition.
32:32Which sometimes makes them fall apart and nicely go through the net.
32:36Other times you just get into the smelly fragments just all over the place.
32:39Just seeing all these dead fish.
32:40I mean it's unpleasant just from a visceral point of view.
32:44Just the smell of death.
32:47This one is pretty horrible.
32:52That was a male fish.
32:54It looked like that fish hadn't spawned.
32:56And the more we set our nets, the more I get the feeling that something out of the ordinary is happening here.
33:03Some of the ones that have actually broken open because they're so decomposed.
33:07They've still got eggs in. They've still got lots of eggs in.
33:09So this isn't normal.
33:11Normally dead salmon have no eggs.
33:13They've sowed the seeds of the next generation.
33:15But this isn't a normal situation. There's something going on here.
33:31Back at the scientists' research vessel, taking a break from netting.
33:33I find some salmon still alive close to shore and decide to perform a test using a thermometer borrowed from the scientists.
33:41So there's a very dramatic difference in water temperature.
33:51I could feel it with my hands, but according to the thermometer in the stream, the water was 10 degrees Celsius.
33:5849 degrees Fahrenheit.
34:01At the mouth of the stream where the salmon are milling around is 15.
34:0658 degrees Fahrenheit.
34:09And then here at the side of the river where the dead salmon are, 25.
34:1476 degrees.
34:16That's a massive overall difference of 27 degrees Fahrenheit.
34:23I mean, that's just such a difference and the difference it makes to the fish.
34:26Again, very graphic, the difference between being alive and being dead.
34:31The scientists tell me that the temperature in the river should be about the same as it is in the spring-fed stream.
34:38But before I arrived, this region had the biggest heat wave in living memory,
34:44making the river temperature soar to a level that salmon can't survive.
34:52Is this disaster a result of global warming?
34:54The scientists don't know, but without a food supply, it's another nail in the kaluga's coffin.
35:03I ask Victor, one of the scientists, when was the last time he saw a monster kaluga from this river?
35:09So Victor grew up on the banks of this river, on the banks of the Amur, has been fishing here since he was a small boy.
35:23The biggest kaluga he's seen was about 1,300 pounds.
35:28The biggest one he's caught himself was about 1,200 pounds.
35:32And the fish that length, he says, is about 16 feet long.
35:35And he remembers, this is interesting, fishermen like this, he remembers the exact date that it was caught on, 6th of August 1981.
35:42It's been more than 30 years since he caught a monster kaluga here.
35:47But he goes on to tell me a story that could provide a clue to explain the mystery of the missing fishermen.
35:53About 40 years ago, there was a fisherman from his village who went out one day setting hooks.
36:05Very interesting technique, these hooks have no bait on them.
36:08Then fish will actually bump into the line, get caught up.
36:11And this fisherman went out on his own to pull in the line and he didn't come back.
36:24When they recovered the boat, they were able to piece together what probably happened.
36:33The man must have been retrieving the long line.
36:36Long lines can be hundreds of yards long with hooks at regular intervals.
36:42Somewhere on the line was a kaluga.
36:50As it felt itself being pulled towards the surface, it panicked.
36:57In a flash, the tables were turned.
37:02As the fish took out more line, several of the already retrieved 6-inch sharpened hooks stuck the fisherman.
37:11Unable to free himself, the man was dragged to his death.
37:23This story has eerie echoes of a case I investigated in the Congo, looking for the Sunni, a giant catfish.
37:29But even the biggest of these would be dwarfed by the kaluga I'm hunting for here.
37:35That fish pulled a man out of a small dugout.
37:38Long lining is illegal on this river, but if the three fishermen were poaching, they may have been using a long line as well as a net, which could have been doubly dangerous.
37:53In the chaos of a huge thrashing kaluga, were they all dragged to their deaths.
37:59I have proved in the past that a man in the water is no match for a fish not even half his weight.
38:06So a 1500 pound angry giant could easily take out three men.
38:13But are there any giants left?
38:16We set out again in one of the small fishing boats to try and net one.
38:21Just like those dead fishermen did a couple of years ago.
38:25The difference is, our intentions are not to kill the kaluga, but a huge thrashing monster doesn't know that.
38:32We set net after net, each drift and retrieve taking over two hours before moving to another spot.
38:43And with more and more dead salmon showing up, there seems to be nothing left alive in this river.
38:52But then, bubbles breaking the surface are a sign that something's coming up from deep below.
38:59Oh, more bubbles here.
39:01There's something very definitely alive in our net.
39:04That is, oh, a big fish.
39:18I've come to Russia to confront a river monster, a sturgeon called the kaluga, that I had no idea existed until now.
39:24Testimony to how secretive the local people are with regard to this giant and the fortunes it delivers.
39:32It's a living dinosaur on the verge of extinction, because poachers are determined to find and kill every last one.
39:41But after weeks of searching, I finally have one of these rare beasts in my sights.
39:45So this is it, the kaluga sturgeon of the Amur River.
39:58Now, this is big by normal freshwater fish standards, but by the standards of what this fish can potentially grow to, this is a small one.
40:07But I've never been so happy and relieved to find a fish alive.
40:14These fish grow well over a thousand pounds.
40:16Big one of these, 15 foot long.
40:19I can well believe now the stories of those smashing boats.
40:22I'm afraid that the last of the giants may be gone.
40:27But as fortunes can still be made from the fish that remain, this story can only end in tragedy for the kaluga.
40:35And sometimes for the fishermen, who still hunt them illegally.
40:38Despite having heard those stories of deaths and disappearances, the real victim is actually this fish, which we've fished very hard for.
40:51Well, this is the biggest one that I've seen.
40:54This thing's been hunted really to the edge of extinction, all for the sake of its valuable eggs.
41:00That's really very sad.
41:02And I really hope that this population comes back.
41:08But even in the face of this human onslaught, nature has a surprising ability to cling on.
41:16As this rare living dinosaur returns to the deep, I find something in the boat that gives me a glimmer of hope.
41:26It's quite something when I think that I've heard so much about this fish, particularly in terms of the very large size that it can reach.
41:34Over a thousand pounds, fifteen, sixteen foot long.
41:39And to think that when I put this back over the course of many years, it could grow big enough to drag people out of boats.
41:46But here it is, a perfect, perfect miniature kaluga.
41:51Without doubt, it's my smallest ever river monster.
41:58But in terms of the significance and hope it carries, it could be the biggest of my entire career.
42:04On the top tier 2.
42:08Let's go!
42:10What are you talking about?
42:12What are you talking about, right?
42:13No, I think no, no.
42:14The sediment has lost their entire career.
42:17For a few years, I have known about licenses.
42:18The type of space is something that they probably have allowed to do for better skills andructured.
42:21The加油 вас in the history of our whole team,
42:23The aj92, that's the secret of these aircraft,
42:24The most powerful companies itself,
42:27These motors can't expose their own fabric from other companies.
42:29The same thing that has perhaps moved throughout.
42:30It's how white isn't shown in baseball.
42:31The successful company, the whole book that has been divided into their entire career.