River Monsters S04E05 Russian Killer

DocuDrift

Documentary, River Monsters S04E05 Russian Killer   #RiverMonsters #Documentary

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. Three men mysteriously disappear on a remote and wild river in Russia.

00:30It has all the hallmarks of a classic river monsters investigation. Telltale clues that this was not just a simple fishing accident.

00:38I believe they encountered something in the water. Something big enough and terrible enough to cause the death of not just one man, but of all three.

00:52October 2009. The Amur River in the far wild east of Russia.

01:14Three men set out on a fishing trip.

01:18It's the kind of trip they've made many times before.

01:29Only this time is different.

01:33This time, they never return.

01:45A year later, the bodies of two of the men are found, or what's left of them. Long dead, apparently drowned. The third body is never recovered.

02:12Over 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. It's as if there's something in the water that they don't want the outside world to know about.

02:28So I've had nothing concrete to go on. Until now.

02:39Russia is a place I've never been to before.

02:43It's the largest country in the world. And the Amur is the world's 10th longest river.

02:50At 2700 miles, it's nearly twice as long as the Colorado.

02:55The region is home to some of the largest land predators. Tigers and bears. But 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.

03:18And something still lurks in its depths. Killing fishermen to this day, I want to find out what it is.

03:28What I need are facts. And 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.

03:52In this remote location, where few outsiders travel, getting information is not going to be easy.

03:59So I go fishing at a small feeder stream on the outskirts of town.

04:05People in isolated communities can be suspicious of strangers. So I'm using myself as bait.

04:14Oh! Oh!

04:16To see if the novelty of an outsider might tempt somebody to talk.

04:21I think I just briefly hooked something.

04:26But I don't want to strike too early and reveal that it's information I'm after. Not until I've gained their trust.

04:33Ah!

04:42This one?

04:43OK. Blue fox. OK. Thank you.

04:49Fishing, for me, is often about thinking outside the box.

04:52My efforts are rewarded. I get an invitation to join them inside their home.

04:59But first, I want to prove that I'm capable of bringing a fish in.

05:03Fishing, for me, is always bringing a fish in.

05:23Whoa!

05:24But wherever I fish, I seem to run into competition I wasn't expecting.

05:37Hey, I've got a dog here.

05:41No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

05:45I don't want to...

05:46In 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. That would not be... that would not be fun.

06:02Lovely fish. Lovely chum salmon. Beautiful coloration.

06:17Pink band down the side, those dark spots on the back.

06:21Untold, this river is stuffed with salmon.

06:24Interesting. I think you're starting to see that sort of metamorphosis that they undergo when they come in the rivers.

06:30That 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.

06:52I join Igor Poroshen and his friends inside to warm up.

06:56And as we talk, I'm hoping I'll get the information I have come here for.

07:01Does anyone know of the fishermen who disappeared?

07:05Other fish?

07:08Other fish?

07:09Other fish?

07:10Other fish?

07:11Other fish?

07:12Other fish?

07:13Other fish?

07:14I have never tried.

07:16After some general fishing chat, Igor tells me a key fact about the three men who vanished.

07:21Good luck.

07:23Well, I've managed to find out a little bit more. The fishermen actually weren't from here, they were from a town a little way further up the river.

07:36With some borrowed transport, I head west to the town of Inokentyivka.

07:41With fewer than 5,000 people, this fishing community is one of just a handful along this stretch of the Amur.

07:59There's a tough mix of races and cultures, all brought together for one reason, fish.

08:06With such a small population, it shouldn't be too hard to find someone who knew the fishermen.

08:11The 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.

08:31Treading gently, I ask about what happened.

08:34His cousin went fishing with two other people a couple of years ago, and they disappeared.

08:45Two bodies were actually found the next year. The 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.

09:06But 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.

09:15And the weather was nothing out of the ordinary.

09:18And three people somehow disappeared.

09:21I 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.

09:43He does, however, agree to show me on the map where they would have been heading.

09:47Well, he's shown me where it happened, and I 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.

10:08There's something lurking in the river that no one wants me to know about, and I won't leave until I've caught it.

10:17I'm in the far eastern wilds of Russia, investigating a tragic event.

10:30Three fishermen who never returned from a fishing trip.

10:34I've been given the location of where it happened.

10:38My investigation needs to be thorough.

10:41Once all the obvious possibilities have been crossed off, I can take a hard look at the suspects in the water.

10:47And since I've never fished here before, I've no idea what's down there.

10:51Well, this is pretty much where the boat went down, and 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, they 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.

11:23Some 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.

11:39Perhaps they were poaching, but what for?

11:53This is a seal that's got drowned in the net.

11:56I 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.

12:09Tangled 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.

12:35So 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.

13:00Fish 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.

13:20And everyone's involved, young and old, every race and culture in the whole area.

13:26But instead of finding answers, my suspicions only deepen.

13:30People are friendly enough, but again, no-one seems to want to give anything away.

13:34Just what is going on.

13:44So once again, I use myself as bait to try and gain their trust.

13:48There are fish off the factory's dock, but I'm not seeing any monsters.

14:00It's not quite. It's a bit roach-like. About four or five ounces.

14:04And 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.

14:26If 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?

15:05How many countries have I fished in during my River Monsters adventures?

15:09The answer, right after this.

15:13To film River Monsters, over the last four years, I've fished in 21 countries, spread over six continents.

15:30I'm in the far east of Russia, on the tenth longest river in the world, the Amur.

15:35A perfect hideout for a monster.

15:38My 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.

15:54Right.

15:55It's another surprise.

15:56I'll try and swing this in, basically putting a lump of dead fish out by the waste chute at the fish factory.

16:09And 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.

16:39I've caught giant whales catfish from the river Ebro in Spain.

16:47Fish so big, they nearly pulled me into the river.

16:51So 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.

17:11It 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,

17:24it's said to grow to a similar size as those infamous whales catfish from Europe that I've investigated before.

17:30But very little is actually known about it.

17:33Could a giant catfish, fattened on the fish waste from this plant, be the monster of the Amur?

17:41But 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.

18:22This 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.

18:51And they were trying to pull the net in with the fish in it, so they were over one side of the boat.

19:04This fish was so big, that it actually flipped the boat and they fell into the cold water.

19:09This 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.

19:23This fish they had in the net, what kind of fish was it?

19:27But what he starts to describe to me is no catfish.

19:31It'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?

19:55I've discovered the presence of a giant catfish, and I've just heard a report of another incident.

20:01Two fishermen who were dragged to their deaths by a fish of staggering size.

20:10He says it's a very big fish, this one about 1500 pounds, very powerful fish, and it's got a big mouth.

20:201500 pounds is a colossal size.

20:22Can you give me some more details of this fish? Can you describe it to me?

20:25Can you describe it to me?

20:37But the fish he's describing is not a catfish. It's something else entirely.

20:43What 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.

20:50And 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.

21:04And it's got a big mouth, this is a predatory fish that normally feeds on other fish, on smaller fish.

21:09And it's also got these feelers hanging from its snout, and I put all of that together and to me that says sturgeon.

21:19It 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?

21:31This is a very big fish that flies to the sea. It's a caluga.

21:38Finally, I have a name for my culprit. Caluga.

21:41A monster fish that has killed fishermen in the past.

21:49Could the three men have been drowned trying to wrestle a huge sturgeon into their boat?

21:54A 1500 pound monster would surely be the fish of a lifetime.

22:02But can I catch one?

22:05At least now that I know what I'm after, I can prepare accordingly.

22:12Sturgeon have long sensitive nasal feelers.

22:16So rather than a wire trace, I use a thin, super tough braided line that's harder to detect.

22:24From 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.

22:45It 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.

22:52Out here on this vast 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.

23:27Knowing what I know about sturgeon, I'm preparing for anything.

23:32I'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.

23:42There it is. There we go. 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.

23:55The biggest kaluga on record tipped the scales at a staggering 2,205 pounds, bigger than the heaviest recorded white sturgeon.

24:03They have the potential of being the biggest river monster of all time.

24:08But to catch one, I'm going to have to change the tactics I'd normally use for hunting sturgeon.

24:16Most 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.

24:28With 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. I'm going to try an artificial lure.

24:40Because the kaluga is a predator, it eats small fish.

24:43I'll put something on which, well, that's going to vaguely resemble something alive down there on the bottom.

24:49It'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 and I'm just going to lift the rod up and down.

24:57And so this is just going to flutter, particularly this tail, it's going to flutter in the water.

25:02And it should attract just the movement of the vibration.

25:06It's the kind of thing that will attract the attention of a predator.

25:09Suddenly it strikes me that there are no other fishermen out here.

25:24And now I find out why.

25:27River police.

25:28I'm politely told that fishing for kaluga is illegal.

25:41If I had caught anything, I'd have been in serious trouble.

25:44Just 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?

26:37He tells me the Amur was once full of these giants.

26:45The situation in the Soviet area is that there was a ban on fishing for kaluga.

26:50But 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.

27:02The 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?

27:11Just getting my head around the numbers here, the thing that's driving this whole situation is

27:20the eggs of the kaluga.

27:23This is a type of sturgeon and it carries caviar.

27:27About 13 to 14% of the body weight of 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.

28:07It does seem very much as if the fish here is doomed.

28:13Later, 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.

28:23People wouldn't talk because they were scared of the repercussions.

28:26Could the three fishermen who disappeared have come across one of the last giants and in the ensuing battle lost their lives?

28:40Sorry everyone, sorry.

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.

28:52I want to see if there are any monsters out there, but the kaluga is protected.

28:58There's a possible way around this.

29:00People 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.

29:08But 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.

29:16And I'm just so reluctant to give up having come this far.

29:20So I've been looking into ways, you know, is there any way I can just circumvent this?

29:25And I think I've found a way.

29:27Valentin has put me in touch with a team of scientists here monitoring fish stocks on the Amur.

29:33They've allowed me to join them.

29:35This is my only chance of seeing a kaluga.

29:38If 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, and apparently that is a police boat chasing some poachers.

30:08And at the moment I think, I think the poachers are getting away.

30:13The distance between the two boats is lengthening.

30:16The 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.

30:23Out here on this vast river, trying to catch anything is going to be hard enough.

30:28But something as rare as a kaluga is going to be almost impossible.

30:32But then they say that about many fish I go in search of.

30:35A 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.

30:53But also on the boat, you're feeding it out, it 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.

31:08But as we wait for a chance encounter with one of these rare giants, I'm about to witness another side to this disaster.

31:23I'm in Russia tracking down a new river monster, a huge sturgeon called a kaluga.

31:40But I've discovered these fish have been pushed to the edge of extinction by mafia-style organized crime.

31:46My only chance to encounter one of these monsters is with a team of scientists.

31:50But something's wrong out here on the river.

31:57This is actually quite spooky. It looks like a migration of fish.

32:00There's all these fins sticking out of the water.

32:02And what it is, it's salmon upside down and their tail fins breaking the surface.

32:07And they're all sort of drifting down with a current.

32:10And they're all dead.

32:12Of course, it's normal for salmon to die after spawning.

32:15I wonder if that's what's happening here.

32:17And even more of what we're seeing too many of.

32:24Oh.

32:26Dead salmon.

32:28And a lot of them now in fairly advanced stages of decomposition.

32:32Which sometimes makes them fall apart and nicely go through the net.

32:35Other times you just get endless smelly fragments just all over the place.

32:38Just seeing all these dead fish.

32:40I mean, it's unpleasant just from a visceral point of view.

32:45Just the smell of death.

32:47This one is pretty horrible.

32:53That was a male fish.

32:55It 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.

33:06They've still got eggs in.

33:07They'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.

33:21There's something going on here.

33:31Back at the scientists' research vessel, taking a break from netting,

33:34I find some salmon still alive close to shore

33:37and decide to perform a test using a thermometer borrowed from the scientists.

33:45So there's a very dramatic difference in water temperature.

33:51I could feel it with my hands, but according to the thermometer,

33:55in the stream, the water was 10 degrees Celsius.

33:5949 degrees Fahrenheit.

34:02At the mouth of the stream where the salmon are milling around is 15.

34:0758 degrees Fahrenheit.

34:09And then here at the side of the river where the dead salmon are, 25.

34:13That's 76 degrees.

34:16That's a massive overall difference of 27 degrees Fahrenheit.

34:23I mean, that's just such a difference.

34:24And, you know, the difference it makes to the fish.

34:27Again, very graphic, the difference between being alive and being dead.

34:32The scientists tell me that the temperature in the river

34:34should be about the same as it is in the spring-fed stream.

34:37But before I arrived, this region had the biggest heat wave in living memory,

34:43making the river temperature soar to a level that salmon can't survive.

34:48Is this disaster a result of global warming?

34:55The scientists don't know.

34:56But without a food supply, it's another nail in the kaluga's coffin.

35:00I asked 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 Yamaha, has been fishing here since he was a small boy.

35:22The biggest kaluga he's seen was about 1,300 pounds.

35:27The 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,

35:37he remembers the exact date that it was caught on, 6th of August 1981.

35:43It'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.

35:58About 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.

36:28Yeah, thank you.

36:33The man must have been retrieving the long line.

36:36Long lines can be hundreds of yards long, with hooks at regular intervals.

36:45Somewhere 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.

36:59As 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.

37:15This story has eerie echoes of a case I investigated in the Congo, looking for the Sunni, a giant catfish.

37:30But even the biggest of these would be dwarfed by the kaluga I'm hunting for here.

37:34That fish pulled a man out of a small dugout.

37:43Long lining is illegal on this river.

37:46But if the three fishermen were poaching, they may have been using a long line as well as a net,

37:52which could have been doubly dangerous.

37:54In the chaos of a huge thrashing kaluga, were they all dragged to their deaths?

37:58I have proved in the past that a man in the water is no match for a fish not even half his weight.

38:07So a 1,500 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.

38:24The difference is our intentions are not to kill the kaluga, but a huge thrashing monster doesn't know that.

38:35We 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.

38:48But 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 our 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.

39:26Testimony 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.

39:39But after weeks of searching, I finally have one of these rare beasts in my sights.

39:54So this is it, the kaluga sturgeon of the Amur River.

39:57Now, 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.

40:09But I've never been so happy and relieved to find a fish alive.

40:14These fish grow well over a thousand pounds.

40:17Big 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.

40:28But 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.

40:41Despite having heard those stories of deaths and disappearances, the real victim is actually this fish, which we've fished very hard for.

40:50Well, 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.

40:59That's really very sad.

41:01And 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.

41:13As 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, and 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.

41:45But here it is, a perfect miniature kaluga.

41:54Without 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.

42:04It could be the biggest of my entire career.

42:05It could be the biggest of my entire career.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended