- 6 months ago
River.Monsters.S05E01.Face.Ripper
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CreativityTranscript
00:00In Eastern Europe, there have long been rumors of an ancient freshwater monster.
00:07It has slithered through the centuries, leaving a string of grisly attacks in its wake,
00:13dragging people from the shallows and even tearing off limbs.
00:18My name is Jeremy Wade, and my search for this elusive creature
00:22will lead me from its remote rural beginnings to the most unlikely refuge,
00:27the cooling pond of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
00:34Where I'm thrown into a science fiction nightmare,
00:38searching for a suspected mutant amid the fallout of the worst nuclear accident the world has ever seen.
00:46So mutant fish, it seems very likely.
00:49My mission is to venture deep behind the former Iron Curtain
00:53to discover this monster's true identity
00:56and in a race against deadly radiation and time
00:59to catch it.
01:02That's a fish!
01:14Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s,
01:17and a young farmhand tends his cattle.
01:19Heading down to the lake to cool off,
01:22he secures the cow to his wrist with a length of rope.
01:33Suddenly something grabs his leg and drags him into the water.
01:39Still attached to the cow, he shouts the command,
01:42Go! Go!
01:42And a tug of war begins.
01:49Hearing his screams, villagers run to his aid and haul him to safety
01:53as the beast retreats.
02:02But is there really a creature living in those waters
02:05capable of such an attack?
02:08I'm making my way to Ukraine in Eastern Europe
02:15to a village called Somin
02:17at the heart of the lake monster legends.
02:22The whole area is permeated by interconnected lakes and waterways,
02:27the perfect labyrinth to hide a monster.
02:30Beneath the relics of the Soviet Empire lie its rural roots,
02:36remote places steeped in pagan folklore and mysticism.
02:40Their misty waters are said to be home to vengeful spirits,
02:44with ancient ceremonies still performed to appease them.
02:51My investigation starts in Somin,
02:53which appears every bit a sleepy rural village.
02:56I waste no time and get chatting with the locals,
03:01who, on hearing that I'm on the trail of a mysterious lake creature,
03:05immediately point me in the direction of a nearby farmer named Anatoly.
03:11Anatoly, people say that you know something about a large creature in the lake.
03:19Something called a Somme.
03:21They've got a name for this thing.
03:22What exactly is a Somme?
03:23What does a Somme look like?
03:25A lot of small, sharp teeth.
03:26He says it's somewhat similar in shape to a whale.
03:33They're very mild, but very ostriches.
03:36Lots of small, sharp teeth.
03:38He says almost like the bristles on a brush.
03:41There's almost no one.
03:42You have to hide the skin with a skin, all the body.
03:46The whole body just has this slimy feel to it.
03:50The fish of seven to ten foot used to be a regular occurrence.
04:00They would be so big that they'd have to take them away on a horse and cart.
04:05And apparently swans and geese from time to time would just disappear from sight.
04:10Something would come up and just engulf them whole.
04:13Very, very fast, striking, ferocious fish.
04:17Do you still have big ones in the lake?
04:19I don't know, but there are some cases that they catch up to 2 meters long.
04:26He says he thinks there are still quite big ones there.
04:30Fish maybe seven, eight, nine foot long.
04:34So it seems there's a large, aggressive fish at the heart of these stories.
04:41And while I'm not sure of its identity, I do at least have a name.
04:46The Somme.
04:46Somme!
04:48It's hard to imagine this tranquil village harbouring a bloodthirsty monster.
04:53But as I search my way through the dawn mist,
04:56Sommen Lake takes on a whole new character.
05:04With the sun now rising through the mist,
05:08it feels like a place where water spirits and 10 foot long fish could be perfectly possible.
05:15I want to find out what life lurks in the depths of this lake.
05:20Trailing a lure behind the boat will allow me to explore a large expanse of water.
05:25But without the modern luxury of a motor, it does require some effort.
05:30See the rod tip sort of wobbling away there, which is good.
05:33But it shows that the bait is working.
05:35It's actually swimming with a bit of life.
05:40The thought of fish in here, getting on for the length of this boat,
05:44it does make you feel a little bit vulnerable.
05:51I fish all through the morning, without any interest in my lure.
05:55Then I come across someone else with a line in the water.
05:57Helena lives nearby and fishes here nearly every day.
06:03Do you know anything about big fish in this lake?
06:07Just off here, about 30 feet off the dock, the water parted.
06:17And something, well, that was actually the width across its back,
06:22a very large fish surface.
06:24She said it was multicolored.
06:25There was a bit of red and blue in there.
06:27Well, I think it was a song.
06:29She said she thinks it was one of these song.
06:31I now focus on the area where Helena saw this fish
06:37and switch to casting out my lures.
06:42Yeah, yeah.
06:47No, that's not a fish.
06:48That's not a fish.
06:51What's this?
06:53You scored on a net.
06:54I'm pulling it in because netting is actually illegal here.
07:03I can hardly get two fingers in one hole.
07:06So that is designed for very small fish.
07:08It just goes on and on.
07:11There must be over 200 feet of net just in this one spot.
07:17Oh, what's this?
07:19There's a pike here.
07:21So this is a pike.
07:22This is only a small one, but these do grow four or five feet long.
07:26It's a predator, but it's got teeth.
07:28The song doesn't, or certainly not teeth like these.
07:31And also, the thing I've been hearing about,
07:34the width of the body is the length of this.
07:36So whatever it was that attacked that boy,
07:39pretty certain it wasn't one of these.
07:47Now it's attacked the bottom of the food chain.
07:49And what it means is that everything that depends on the small fish,
07:53you know, there's just not enough food.
07:56I wonder how big an impact modern fishing materials have had on this ancient lake.
08:02In search of answers, I seek out a man named Petro,
08:05one of the village's old-timer fishermen.
08:07The last 20, 25 years, life got a bit hard,
08:16but at the same time, you had more availability of cheap fishing line, cheap fishing net.
08:25There aren't the fish now that there used to be.
08:27He says he thinks it's not too late,
08:30but this place, it seems, is a shadow of its former self at the moment.
08:34So I don't disbelieve that there were seven-foot-long fish here once,
08:41but it sounds like I might be 20, 25 years too late.
08:46But in a country as vast as Ukraine,
08:51could the Somme still be lurking elsewhere,
08:54amid its myriad marshes and interconnecting water channels?
09:00I'm on my way to meet a freshwater spearfisherman,
09:04and he claims to have some more recent information about this fish, the Somme.
09:08His name is Bogdan,
09:12and he spent over a decade spearfishing in Ukraine's murky, fresh water.
09:17What do you see? What do you hunt here?
09:19Somme, big Somme, big Somme, big Somme.
09:24Pike, Xander and Somme.
09:27In the opinion, it's about 70-80 kilograms.
09:30Very big.
09:31He's seen them up to, well, getting close to 200 pounds.
09:35Are these fish dangerous?
09:37This fish is very dangerous.
09:40This is a small fish.
09:42He says these fish are very dangerous,
09:44and he knows some real incidents.
09:49Apparently a military diver doing sort of repairs.
09:58He saw a very large Somme.
10:02The Somme is not afraid of it.
10:03He took a knife and a battle.
10:05So the Somme attacked the diver.
10:08The Somme managed to grab hold of his arm or his hand,
10:13and actually pulled his hand off.
10:19And whereabouts did this happen?
10:22So apparently this happened in the cooling pond of a nuclear power plant,
10:32and people are saying that not only was this fish very large,
10:35it was also some kind of a mutant.
10:38Which nuclear power station?
10:41Chernobyl.
10:42Chernobyl, site of the worst ever radiological accident in history.
10:49And now reportedly home to a giant mutant with a taste for human flesh.
10:55But how close dare I go in search of the Somme?
10:59I'm in the former Soviet state of Ukraine,
11:13exploring an area with a long history of lake monsters.
11:16where I've just learnt of a diver reportedly having his hand ripped off by a giant fish,
11:23rumoured to live in the cooling pond of the abandoned Chernobyl reactor.
11:27In the early hours of April 26th, 1986,
11:34the safety systems at reactor number four were temporarily shut down for an experiment.
11:42Moments later, an unexpected power spike caused a series of huge explosions.
11:47They tore through the reactor, exposing hundreds of tons of intensely radioactive material to the surrounding environment.
12:03Good evening.
12:05That Soviet nuclear disaster is probably the worst in history.
12:08Radioactivity is still being sent into the atmosphere.
12:11With reports that as many as 2,000 people may have been killed,
12:14and a dangerous fire continues to burn.
12:16Emergency crews battled night and day to control the raging fires.
12:22There was a chemical explosion which caused a core meltdown,
12:25that is the most severe of the nuclear accidents that can occur,
12:29and an 18-mile security zone has been set up around the site.
12:32Today, nearly 30 years later,
12:35this exclusion zone is still under strict military protection and control.
12:40Only authorised personnel may enter.
12:42When I set out, I never imagined that I'd end up heading for the site of the world's worst ever nuclear accident, Chernobyl.
12:52The question that's on my mind is whether this fearsome fish, the Somme, has survived in the cooling pond. Is it still there?
13:03And if it has, has the radiation maybe caused it to mutate into something potentially even more terrifying?
13:10The word mutant instantly conjures up visions of deformed giants, gargantuan products of ionising radiation.
13:20Could the Somme really have met a similar fate?
13:23Very few people are allowed through the gates guarding Chernobyl's exclusion zone.
13:31So there's a lot of control going on here, very closely guarded zone.
13:38Fishing gear has raised questions. This is not a place where fishing is allowed.
13:44Ever since the accident, fishing within the zone has been completely outlawed.
13:51They're being very thorough about checking that I've got everything, that the paperwork's in order.
13:56The authorities approve my preliminary paperwork and I'm granted temporary access to the periphery of the zone.
14:04Chernobyl consists of multiple jurisdictions, much like a Russian doll, each layer giving way to the next and all requiring a new level of permission.
14:19For my own safety, I'm restricted to just five consecutive days of exposure.
14:25This is a fishing trip unlike any other.
14:28We've got a couple of things here that I wouldn't normally have with me.
14:30These will keep track of the total amount of radioactivity that I'm exposed to.
14:35This thing, this thing's really my guardian angel. This will go everywhere with me.
14:39This will read in real time the level of radioactivity around me.
14:44If I'm anywhere where the reading's particularly high, there's an alarm that will go off.
14:48Crucially though, this device also shows me how close I'm getting to my radiation limit.
14:54A maximum set by safety experts that must not be exceeded in my five days.
15:00Any exposure to radiation incurs an increased risk of cancer.
15:05And staying within this limit is essential for my safety.
15:09If I reach it, I'll have no choice but to leave Chernobyl immediately.
15:14The countdown has begun.
15:17Under the gaze of the reactor stands the city of Pripyat.
15:28Prior to the accident, it was a thriving community, built to house the thousands of power plant workers and their families.
15:36It was a model city for the nuclear age.
15:47Now, it lies completely abandoned.
15:50To see ancient ruins overrun by vegetation is one thing.
16:04To see a modern city like this is something else entirely.
16:07And the silence in this place is really quite spooky.
16:12What happened here? What was the story?
16:15Well, what happened was a mass evacuation.
16:1850,000 people told to leave and they left in a matter of hours.
16:24And they were told that they would be back in three days.
16:26Well, it's now nearly 30 years and they never came back.
16:37This whole area is still radioactive.
16:40It won't return to normal for tens of thousands of years.
16:44And the levels of radiation, they vary.
16:46There are localised hotspots where the level might be several hundred times what it is just a few feet away.
16:52Without my specialised equipment, I'd have no idea what I was being exposed to or how quickly I was approaching my limit.
17:01Just as the men, women and children of Pripyat were unaware of the danger they faced from this invisible threat.
17:12The full death toll will never be known.
17:15Though it's clear that it lies in the thousands and continues to rise to this day.
17:23But not all living creatures were able to escape the radiation.
17:29There were fish living in the very water that cooled the reactor.
17:33And what I need to do now is to find out what happened to them.
17:36Did they survive even? And if so, could this be the basis of this story about a huge mutant fish?
17:42Many fish can live for well over 30 years.
17:49Could there still be fish alive here, trapped ever since the accident?
17:54Super-sized mutants capable of tearing off human limbs.
17:58The cooling pond is a vast man-made lake, built to provide water to the power plant reactors along a number of channels.
18:08It extends for almost four miles before draining into the Pripyat River at its southern end.
18:14The whole area seems surprisingly green and healthy above the water.
18:22But what about underneath?
18:24I'm about to get my first look at something brought up from the radioactive depths.
18:30How long will it take for Chernobyl's radioactivity to return to pre-accident levels?
18:41It will take millions of years for Chernobyl's radioactivity to return to pre-accident levels.
18:48I'm exploring the radioactive waters around Chernobyl, looking for a suspected mutant fish accused of ripping a man's hand clean off.
19:06There's clearly some kind of life in these waters, but am I about to pull up a mutant?
19:13Well, that's a lovely pike.
19:16This fish actually looks perfectly formed.
19:21I think this doesn't look like any kind of mutant fish.
19:26This may be bigger than the pike I found in the village, but even a pike of record-breaking size couldn't remove a man's hand.
19:36Fish, that's a fish.
19:43This is a really nice-sized perch.
19:44Very characteristic, spiky dorsal fin.
19:48Also, these vertical black bars.
19:51Lovely colouration on the other fins.
19:54And it's a predator, a very aggressive predator, a very big mouth relative to size of body.
19:59These perch don't grow big enough to drag a man into the water, but their presence is encouraging.
20:06It suggests the healthy fish numbers required to sustain a large predator, like a song.
20:11Well, there are fish in here, and, well, some very nice-looking fish.
20:17What's going on at the cellular level on that fish, though, is open to question.
20:23Much of the most serious radiological damage is invisible to the naked eye.
20:32Therefore, the only way to understand the true effects the disaster has had on the fish is through specialised scientific research.
20:38I've arranged to meet a scientist who's spent years studying the effects of radiation on Chernobyl's wildlife.
20:48But before I can venture deeper into the zone, I must undergo a scan as a control portal, still six miles from the core.
20:58It's time for a contamination check. I'll need to do this on a regular basis as I move around the zone.
21:06The machine detects radioactive particles.
21:10Any contamination on my body would sound an alarm.
21:13That's clean.
21:21I'm on my way to meet Tim Mousseau from the University of South Carolina,
21:25who's done numerous radiological studies on animals in the zone.
21:31To limit his exposure, Professor Mousseau only makes brief trips to the zone.
21:36But he's been doing so for over 12 years.
21:40Most recently, to study the birds.
21:45To me, this looks like a perfectly healthy bird.
21:47And we're in the middle of this very green landscape.
21:49Is it true to say things are getting back to normal?
21:51No, you know, things are actually continuing to get worse here.
21:54We're seeing many fewer species and many fewer numbers.
21:58And we know that this is because the birds are not living as long.
22:03The insects are dying.
22:04And the males are frequently sterile.
22:07His probability of surviving from now until next year is less than half of what it would be in a clean area.
22:14We'll put them in the bag for now and just tie that up tight.
22:20What was the magnitude of the event that happened here?
22:23Something on the order of between 200 and 400 atomic bombs, equivalent to the ones that were dropped on Hiroshima.
22:29It was a nuclear fire that burned for 10 days, just spewing radioactive materials.
22:37And much of the zone is still maybe half to a third as contaminated as it was the day after the event stopped.
22:46So how prevalent is mutation? What are you finding?
22:49It's everywhere.
22:51Essentially every organism shows some level of mutation.
22:54So mutant fish, I mean that's not something out of science fiction. That's perfectly possible here.
23:00It seems very likely.
23:02Every time it rains we get runoff.
23:04And this carries with it a substantial amount of cesium.
23:07And it gets into the water.
23:09So it's very likely that the fish are picking up a significant dose from their diet.
23:14Professor Mousseau's research seems to show that little has escaped radiation's deadly reach.
23:19Radioactive substances like cesium and plutonium can have catastrophic effects on living tissues, causing mutations, cancers and death.
23:32And perhaps no more so than at the bottom of the cooling pond, where all that radioactive material has been accumulating since the accident.
23:41Could it be serving as a nuclear nursery, rearing mutant Somme capable of the attack that Bogdan described?
23:50Oh!
23:51That was just my alarm going off.
23:52Must have just passed a radiological hotspot.
23:54I don't know, something in the undergrowth maybe beside the road.
23:57The ghostly scenes all around me feel a million miles from home.
24:16But the reality is that the United States alone has over a hundred nuclear reactors.
24:24Each one with the potential to go catastrophically wrong.
24:34It's therefore vital to learn as much as possible about the radiological impact in disaster zones such as Chernobyl.
24:41Although few studies have been done into the fish, one man does have experience in this area.
24:50Dmitry Gudkov is head of radio ecology at Ukraine's National Academy of Science.
24:56And we meet at an abandoned Soviet fish hatchery.
25:00Apparently he has a photo of a Somme to show me.
25:02I can show you a photograph so it can be more clear.
25:07Ah!
25:09Yes, this is Somme.
25:11Gosh, that's...
25:12Hold on, that's strange looking.
25:14That's...
25:16Ah!
25:17OK.
25:18No, I know this fish, but a different name.
25:21This is a Wells catfish.
25:24What they call a Somme, I know as a Wells.
25:27The physical descriptions match and so too does the behaviour.
25:32The Wells catfish can grow to over 250 pounds and can be very aggressive.
25:37Easily capable of the attack on the villager and perhaps even wrenching the diver's hand off.
25:43This looks like a Wells catfish except there's something very strange going on with its mouth.
25:48It seems to have two lower jaws.
25:51Is this a mutation?
25:52To do some additional research on this video.
25:57He's saying that to really understand whether there's any mutations in these fish, you've got to do laboratory analysis.
26:04And they haven't actually done any work on these Somme, these Wells catfish.
26:10The reason being they haven't actually had a specimen to work on.
26:13Almost like looking at the flight recorder, the black box of an aircraft, it will give you a really, really good insight into what's happening with the fish here.
26:23But as yet, that work hasn't been done.
26:27I've caught big Somme before.
26:30Maybe I can help you here.
26:31What if I could give you a specimen?
26:34Would that be useful?
26:35Yes, of course.
26:36It will be very useful.
26:37But in order to catch this fish, you have to get the correct permission.
26:42I could potentially help here.
26:43I could catch a large fish.
26:44But he's saying this is not the kind of place where you just turn up and fish.
26:48This is a controlled zone.
26:50I would need to go through a process of permission before I could even get near the water.
26:54This is no longer simply about my investigation into myths from a sleepy corner of Eastern Europe.
27:02It's grown a whole lot bigger.
27:05If a catfish can shed light on the biological effects of a disaster on the scale of Chernobyl,
27:12it could be the most important fish I'll ever catch.
27:18Thanks to my unique collaboration with Dimitri, I'm granted permission.
27:22I'm going to be the first person allowed to fish for a wells on the cooling pond.
27:29Progressing through to the next layer, I arrive at the pumping station that supplies water to the pond from the Pripyat River.
27:37I meet my guide, Vlad, who suggests that the edge of this churned up oxygenated water could be a good spot for catfish,
27:46and offers to fish for bait while I rig my lines.
27:52Something going on here.
27:55Suddenly, Vlad is shouting from the other bank.
27:57What is it?
27:59Here it is.
28:01Something from the radioactive depths is on his line, and it's clearly much bigger than mere bait.
28:07I'm in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, where I follow the trail of the lake monster from its ancient rural roots to the most unlikely modern refuge.
28:25The cooling pond of Chernobyl's reactor number four.
28:30The creature that locals call a somme I know as a wells catfish, and I've been granted unprecedented access to fish on the pond.
28:37Is it? Here it is.
28:40While trying to catch bait on like line, my guide, Vlad, has unexpectedly hooked into something big.
28:47What happened?
28:51Did the line go?
28:52It was a catfish.
28:59The fish was almost within reaching distance.
29:03I saw that fish. That was a good-sized fish.
29:06But something just gave in the gear at the end.
29:09What was interesting, though, is it took a moving lure. I mean, that could be, you know, that one got away.
29:18But that could be the way to get them on that kind of lure, but just heavier gear.
29:24I'm amazed to see that a wells catfish has survived just a stone's throw from the reactor.
29:31Losing a good fish is always disappointing, but it has given me a vital pointer.
29:35I'm going to rig plastic lures on stronger line and cast directly into the turbulent water.
29:42I have three days to get a result.
29:48Even though I'm fishing from the bank, I'm still making a point of wearing my life jacket,
29:53because the worst radiation is actually on the bottom of the lake.
29:57So I don't really want to be going anywhere near that.
29:59It's a fish on.
30:04It's a fish on.
30:17This is a zander. It's what they call a pike perch.
30:20And this is a healthy-looking fish, so this is surprising.
30:23You know, not what you'd expect necessarily in this place.
30:26And it's got a healthy set of teeth to match.
30:35Ah!
30:39Catfish probably are lying near the bottom.
30:42They're not going to see much down there.
30:43They're going to feel vibrations.
30:45Yeah, there's one here.
30:53But I can't get through the aggressive zander.
30:59One thing about zander is they have these very big eyes.
31:02They are sight feeders.
31:04They're really good at seeing down near the bottom in low light.
31:07Frustratingly though, the bottom of the water column is precisely where I'm working my lures for the catfish.
31:17Well, the zander are getting bigger at least.
31:18It's actually quite a beautiful scene with the sun going down, but that is actually what's left of reactor number four.
31:26When I watched this place go up on the television all those years ago, I think the last thing on my mind was that one day I'd be here fishing.
31:37The novelty is definitely wearing off now.
31:44These things are so active, so hungry.
31:45It reminds me a little bit of piranhas in the Amazon, just eating the bait or getting to it before anything else can.
31:52So these are in my mind now, the piranhas of Chernobyl.
31:55Normally a good way to increase the chance of a catfish would be to fish into the night, but here I'm under a strict after dark curfew.
32:08I've now got just two days left at my allotted time and the pressure is mounting.
32:14I have to think constantly about radiation safety.
32:17Each evening I test all my gear, checking it thoroughly for radioactive particles that I may have pulled up from the pond.
32:27But as a catch and release fisherman, I've also been wrestling with the exceptional circumstances of my challenge.
32:34There have been instances in the past where fish that I've caught have helped scientists acquire knowledge.
32:40The thing that's different about this is that I'm going to have to hand the fish over,
32:43and I'm not completely comfortable about that.
32:48But ultimately, the information that could be gained from even one fish in this unique situation,
32:55I believe makes such a sacrifice wholly justifiable.
33:01With time so precious, I decide to stick to the method which so nearly proved successful.
33:07Oh, something hit there. On the drop, on the drop.
33:09This is a new fish, different fish.
33:15Again, it's just completely inhaled that bait.
33:18It looks like a fish called a chub.
33:22Big mouth.
33:24Cylindrical, powerful body.
33:27Again, it's not the suspect I'm after, but I am encouraged.
33:31This is what was missing from the lake in Somin.
33:35An abundance of perfect prey for a hungry giant catfish.
33:39Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
33:42I've got slime on the line here.
33:46I might have had a catfish investigate that.
33:49All right, let's get it out again quickly.
33:51Catfish secrete an antibacterial mucus that covers their whole body.
33:55Slime on my line is tantalizing evidence that I'm getting closer.
34:01It's a fish.
34:03Yet again, though, I don't seem to be able to get past the ravenous Xander to reach the catfish.
34:09It's time for a tactical rethink.
34:13The bright lures I've been using so far are attracting too much attention from the sharp-eyed competition.
34:20Catfish rely largely on vibration to detect their prey.
34:25So I changed to a dull allure in the hope of avoiding the Xander.
34:31But there seems to be no fooling them.
34:33These fish here are turning out to be much, much harder than I'd anticipated.
34:41Now, normally, what you do is you just keep fishing.
34:44But here, with the issue of radiation, I'm absorbing radiation the whole time that I'm here.
34:49They take safety very seriously.
34:51There is a very, very strict limit on how much time I can spend here.
34:54So there is some real urgency now about finding this fish.
34:59With pressure mounting, I decide to head off around the pond's perimeter in the hope that some different spots may change my fortunes.
35:16Right, this bit of water here.
35:18I've heard that the fish are sometimes seen down here when the weather's warmer, but I'm not going to fish here because my alarm just keeps going off.
35:23But now, my efforts are either thwarted by dangerous levels of radiation, or the water simply appears lifeless.
35:33Well, this is another part of the lake, but it just seems dead. There's nothing doing here at all.
35:42I'm finding it hard to stay optimistic when it feels that everything is all turning against me, the layers of bureaucracy, while all the time my exposure to radiation is steadily increasing.
35:58I'm starting to wonder if I might have taken on something which is going to turn out to be impossible.
36:03Desperate times call for desperate measures.
36:09There's one area where catfish have been consistently spotted, but it lies on the very channels that were used to feed the reactor.
36:19Even if I can secure permission, will fishing this close to the core put me into radiation overload?
36:25It's a huge gamble, but I've come too far to turn back now.
36:42I'm in Ukraine, in a race against radiation and time, working with scientists on the trail of a suspected mutant catfish, accused of a grisly attack in the radioactive waters of Chernobyl.
36:56So important is the need for a specimen that the authorities have made the ultimate exception, granting me permission to fish on the very arteries leading to the heart of the reactor.
37:07But being this close, can I catch that fish before I reach my exposure limit?
37:13My alarm's just gone off.
37:18And this isn't, and again, and again, and again.
37:21And this isn't because of anything, any dust on the ground or a localised hotspot or anything.
37:26That's the sound record is just going off as well.
37:31The reason this is going off now is because that is the nucleus of the whole place.
37:36That's reactor number four.
37:37That is where, nearly 30 years ago, a 3,000-foot tongue of flame shot into the air, showering radioactive debris into the surrounding area.
37:46I don't have much time before I reach my limit, so I'm switching up to heavier, more robust gear.
37:57This is my last day.
38:05Time is ticking, and so is my dose meter.
38:09Suddenly, I'm hooked into something, something big, and it's pulling me closer and closer to the radioactive water.
38:32It's off.
38:34It came off the hook.
38:35That might be my only chance here.
38:38Might be my only chance.
38:42It's off the hook.
38:43It started swimming towards me.
38:44I don't know, it's...
38:47There was a big fish on my line, very briefly here, right in the shadow of the reactor.
38:53I felt the weight of the fish.
38:54It was a heavy fish.
38:58But the hook came out.
38:59I mean, the weight that I felt should have set the hook, so I really don't know.
39:05Sometimes the hook will not hold, and of all the times for that to happen, it happened here.
39:17It's a soul-crushing failure, but I can't give up.
39:20There's clearly something big out there, but I'm getting ever closer to my radiation limit.
39:27The only option is to persist on the channel in the hope that losing that fish hasn't spooked any others nearby.
39:33I can't afford any mistakes.
39:47If there's any interest in my bait, I absolutely have to set the hook securely.
39:52I'm in Chernobyl, Ukraine, fishing the very channels leading to the ill-fated reactor, searching for a Cold War mutant, accused of ripping a diver's hand clean off.
40:15My body is being constantly bombarded by radiation, and I'm teetering right on the edge of my time limit, when finally, I set the hook.
40:26It's a fish.
40:27It's a fish.
40:45Wait!
40:48I need the gloves.
40:49Until this fish is analysed by Dimitri, I've no idea how radioactive it is, and what risk it poses to me.
40:58So this is it. This is the Somme.
41:00Long, dark, tapering body shape, the wide head, slimy skin, tentacles, teeth a bit like a worn-down brush.
41:10Yeah, absolutely positive ID.
41:12I'm finally holding the biological black box I've been searching for.
41:18I may have caught bigger, but never a fish as extraordinary or significant as this.
41:24Dimitri's research will later reveal that far from being the mutant giant of science fiction,
41:30this Chernobyl catfish is under half the normal size for its age,
41:35its stunted flesh harbouring 16 times the usual level of radiation.
41:39So I came to Ukraine to investigate stories of a fearsome water monster living in a remote, rural corner of the country,
41:48only to find it long gone.
41:50The victim, as is so often the case everywhere, of relentless human progress.
41:55So how strange that I should find this fish here, the site of the world's worst radiological disaster.
42:01The ancient Somme of Ukraine live on, as Chernobyl's radioactive river monsters.
42:11For behind the scenes stories, fishing games and more, go to animalplanet.com slash rivermonsters.