River Monsters S09E05 Volcanic Island Terror

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Documentary, River Monsters S09E05 Volcanic Island Terror  #RiverMonsters

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00:00my name is Jeremy Wade biologist and underwater detective using a rod as my line of inquiry for

00:13more than 30 years I've pushed the envelope of aquatic understanding now I'm hearing reports

00:25from one of the most remote places on earth a land of fire and folklore where an ancient fishing

00:35community is being rocked by a series of vicious attacks by an unidentified underwater assailant

00:41victims are left maimed stamped with mysterious bite marks the injury was so bad that you might

00:50even bleed to death what is behind this eruption of violence what is the identity of the fish that

00:58is terrorizing these volcanic islands

01:20I'm regularly sent reports about attacks happening in waters all over the world from

01:32these I extract the extraordinary from the easily explained and recently one remarkable case leapt to

01:43my attention it comes from a fishing community on a remote volcanic island that's part of Papua New

01:52Guinea in the South Pacific it concerns a spate of underwater attacks that has left a trail of

02:00bloodied victims along the coast the assailant strikes quickly and seemingly at random leaving

02:07behind large puncture wounds but no other clue to its identity the locals are baffled and afraid because

02:16they depend on the sea for their survival with the collective knowledge built up over centuries they know

02:22everything in their waters or thought they did could a bloodthirsty alien have migrated from elsewhere

02:31could this be a native species gone bad or in this remote corner of the world could there be a

02:38completely new kind of monster not just new to the locals but new to me new to all of us

02:45the remote island where the report originated is called New Britain it's one of the least explored

02:54places on earth and somewhere I've never set foot named in the 17th century by an English

03:01explorer it's mountainous covered in rainforest and about the size of Maryland forged by volcanoes

03:12millions of years ago New Britain sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire the island is still rocked by volcanic

03:22activity eruptions and earthquakes strike without warning and with devastating effect

03:29an ancient fishing community under attack by something new in the water is a scenario I can't resist

03:37investigating but all I know for certain is that the incidents happened along a particular stretch of

03:44coast where dozens of coral islands lie just offshore I've managed to find a boatman named John who has

03:55agreed to take me to some of the isolated communities where I can start my investigation everywhere you

04:02look on the water you've got canoes and you've got people actually in the water themselves it's almost as

04:07if they spend more time immersed than they do on land and it's all about fishing because these people

04:11they have to fish every single day just to feed themselves I want to start collecting information about the

04:21recent attacks and John has suggested this market island where people gather to exchange and barter goods

04:31these isolated fishing communities have little or no contact with the rest of the world and rarely see

04:37outsiders I expect them to be suspicious of a stranger like me

04:43but a catch being unloaded gives me an opportunity to talk about fishing our common ground

04:52you have a lot of fish

04:55in a throwback to colonial times most people here speak a version of creole

05:00called tok pizin and some speak a little english

05:03this fish yes

05:06so all spear this is this so okay so you're going down very deep or someone's going is this you you

05:13so you go like 30 40 meters so like 100 feet more than yeah more than 100 feet wow

05:21the idyllic waters conceal an arms race beneath the surface

05:25the fish are bristling with weaponry including things i've never seen before

05:33he's just telling me you've got to be very careful with the tail

05:37there is a spine which is actually pointing forward so i'm glad they pointed it out to me

05:41because i could have hurt myself these fish can all inflict some injury but i'm told none of them get

05:48big enough to be a serious threat to humans the locals soon warm to a fellow fisherman and i turn

05:56the conversation towards the attacks any big fish here uh that bite people that you hear about

06:10they tell me that because of the recent incidents everybody is now wary in the water

06:15nobody on this island has been attacked but they know about a spear fisherman who encountered a large

06:22toothy fish he'd never seen before and they think it could be the culprit

06:33they tell me this man's name is george and he lives i believe it's the the island right on the horizon

06:40so i need to go and try and get some more details from him

06:42as a spear fisherman george will know these waters well so he could be a valuable first witness in my

06:51investigation these people encounter fish on a daily basis and because being actually under the

06:58water and spearfishing is such a big part of that their familiarity with those fish and their behavior

07:04possibly surpasses that of fishermen anywhere else in the world so for an experienced spear fisherman to

07:10see something that he can't identify if that's true that is hugely significant

07:22on the way to george's island i spot a lot of activity a sign that fish are feeding

07:27it's a chance to get my line in the water and catch potential suspects

07:31i'm hoping that pulling a bright lure behind the boat will call out to anything predatory nearby

07:42this diving vein here uh that will send it down deep i'm expecting this to to work fairly close to

07:49the bottom in this uh coastal bit of water here there's also a little bit of a rattle there

07:57so this is actually working on different channels it's sending out visual cues but also there's

08:04there's vibration in the water floating down floating floating floating and then down it goes

08:14it's not long before something takes my lure

08:19yep

08:19it's interesting this is sort of heavy but it's not really running

08:30it's coming in just a flash there it is there it is there it is it's going down again

08:37it's a golden snapper and it's pretty well armed

08:48this is very spiky fish that's what a beautiful fish what a lovely coloration

08:53big eyes suggest a sight predator big mouth well it just confirms that it's a it's a hunter it's a it is

09:01a predator teeth in there they're not very big teeth but that's basically if it grabs something

09:07whatever it is it's not going to get away

09:11it's a fearsome predator but they only grow to a couple of feet

09:14and their teeth are too small to inflict the life-threatening puncture wounds i'm investigating

09:19back on the trail of witnesses i arrive at the island where george lives

09:31and i'm greeted by an inquisitive crowd

09:40george isn't amongst them so i head into the village where there are carvings everywhere

09:45including what appear to be ritualistic totems

09:53lots of fish carvings which you'd sort of expect when the people live right on the water

09:57here is very very rich in art in representation some of these things are clearly imaginary or

10:04mythical and there's some real creatures here as well it's a rogues gallery with mug shots of all

10:10the well-known lethal predators in the area but i'm looking for something underwater and unknown

10:18and i'm hoping george the spear fisherman can help

10:21funny time what man's a story or sam's lapis and he tells me he was out fishing on a nearby reef

10:27the first there wasn't much around but then he spotted a school of fish and dived down after them

10:45he didn't notice a large mysterious fish coming straight for him until it was inches from his face

10:57this was a dark colored fish um not excessively long he says you know a pretty long fish but the

11:07main thing about it uh very deep bodies a big head with what looked like big teeth

11:13was this the first time you you'd seen this fish yeah in over 30 years of spearfishing in these waters

11:24george had never seen a fish like this before so it's a suspect i have to take seriously

11:41john and i have headed out to the reef where george's encounter happened

11:45in the hope of catching the fish that went after him

11:47instead of fishing a single spot i start trolling allowing me to cover much more of the reef

12:01oh and ahead ahead

12:05you know fish are on the hunt they're definitely on the hunt the birds are coming down to grab any

12:11confused injured bait fish yeah it's really kicking off here now and this activity is a sign unseen predators

12:22are on the hunt oh yeah yeah here we go

12:27i'm off a remote island in papua new guinea investigating an unseen attacker that's been terrorizing locals

12:44i'm at the scene of a mysterious recent encounter

12:56oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

12:58and i've got a fish on

13:01looked or something but that's really going

13:07this is a powerful fish oh i can just see i can see color here we go

13:13getting it slowly nearer to the surface uh we're gonna see it's a giant trevally

13:20big eye that goes with being a sight predator hunting down prey by sight

13:35as i discovered in fiji giant trevally can be lethal using their head as a battering ram

13:43but i'm looking for an aggressive biter

13:50they got teeth there's a couple of canines in the middle of the lower jaw you know that could inflict

13:57some damage but not the life-threatening wounds i'm investigating and that's another thing

14:03an experienced fisherman like george would recognize it these are very familiar fish if

14:09somebody saw a giant trevally they'd know it was a giant trevally so we're talking about something else

14:18back on the trail of the mystery assailant my boatman john and i carry on trolling to see what

14:24other big predators can be enticed from the depths

14:27every now and again this gives a real hit on the rod

14:42well it's in quite close now i can see that's quite a long fish what's that that's barracuda

14:50this fish has the hardware to cause some serious injury those teeth are almost like daggers the

15:03mouth doesn't really even need to close it just swims at speed with his mouth open it leaves a long cut

15:09the teeth are so sharp that in florida just a glancing blow was enough to slice a man's arm to the bone

15:21although dangerous this fish doesn't make my suspect list either

15:26and the shape and everything's all wrong from the start but everybody knows where the barracuda is around here

15:30the spear fisherman described a dark full-bodied creature with a big head so definitely not this fish

15:39i'm starting to rack up the species and certainly lots of predators here but

15:44nothing so far that's at all out of the ordinary

15:50at the moment there's no firm link between the fish that went after george

15:54and what's responsible for the more serious incidents i'm here to investigate

16:01to get closer to that culprit i need to find more witnesses

16:07but that's easier said than done these communities are spread along miles of coast

16:13and over dozens of small islands and communications are limited

16:19but in one village i'm told about a man named andrew

16:22who some years ago was bitten by something unknown

16:30can you tell me what happened uh this lapicia

16:38next up andrew tells me how he and a friend went fishing one day

16:44wading into chest deep water on the reef

16:47they were using a long gill net to make a circular trap

16:58so what happened to andrew was he he's deployed the net he's he's gathering it in and there's

17:02something in there which is big and because it's enclosed it's wanting to escape and what happened is it bit

17:09his leg

17:18the assailant left a bloody puncture wound in andrew's calf

17:25it then escaped but not before he got a good look at it

17:29this is a big big fish very big fish how big is uh about this big

17:39blackfish blackfish

17:42it's a strikingly similar description to the mystery fish that went for george the spear fisherman this

17:47one and but there's more and this time it left behind physical evidence yeah a scar on andrew's leg

17:53the scar is interesting because he said this is a fish with big teeth

18:04they're sort of uh pointed teeth and it made one hole in his leg

18:16on the basis of what i just heard it's sounding very likely

18:19the the mystery fish on the reef and this fish that bit andrew they could be one and the same

18:25and the other thing that was very interesting was the scar on his leg a single hole it's very

18:31characteristic but at the same time i've got no idea at the moment what that could be

18:38as there was only one mark on andrew's leg it's clear that the culprit's teeth are quite far apart

18:45so this is the dental profile i need to be looking for

18:51andrew has told me where he was attacked and i've waded out to the scene of the crime

18:58but fishing without the protection of a boat leaves me feeling vulnerable to whatever might be out here

19:06standing on nice shallow water here but right here it plunges away it's dark

19:11i can't see what's there but anything that's there can very clearly see me so it's a little bit more

19:17adrenaline perhaps than normal involved in this fishing

19:31so

19:42ah yes this is a strong fish if i'm not careful it could pull me over the edge leader in sight leader in

19:52sight

20:02on a remote island off papua new guinea i'm on the trail of a mystery attacker

20:08that's terrorizing the local community

20:13i'm fishing on the very edge of the reef and i've hooked into something big

20:17ah yes

20:23i'm taking it away from the coral it's a strong fish and i'm struggling to keep my footing

20:29leader in sight leader in sight

20:29ah that was 10 feet from where i'm standing when that came off it was just around the edge

20:48of the the lip of the coral here it was something dark against the dark background because here is

20:54light that is all dark water there the stealthy attacker i'm after is a big dark fish

21:02so this could have been it so that was a sizable fish and i just just wish i'd seen it at least

21:11even if i didn't get it in just a glimpse but no glimpse

21:13some predatory fish are seriously territorial and it could come back for more

21:22but although i keep casting it doesn't fall for the same trick twice

21:29the fish aren't biting so i carry on up the coast in search of other attack victims

21:34at the next village i hear about an incident that's very similar to the ones i'm investigating

21:45but with an interesting new detail the attacks which i thought were recent may have begun decades ago

21:57one of the witnesses is now 70 years old

22:04jim was just a boy when the attack took place but every detail from that day is seared into his memory

22:18he was with a group of family and friends at a river mouth near their village

22:25it was a hot day so jim and a friend ran into the water to cool off

22:29just as they were about to jump off a log jim spotted something

22:40they saw a movement in the water they saw first of all it was bubbles they thought it was a crocodile

22:46but then they saw a dark shape and they realized that it was a fish

22:51thinking this large fish would make an easy meal for the family

22:55jim called over his older brother to spear it

22:59his brother hit it first time but the fish thrashed free

23:05and attacked

23:09it sank its teeth into his brother's leg and started to drag him away

23:15hearing screams the adults raced into the water

23:18jim says if people hadn't come to hell he would have been pulled away

23:30a tug of war ensued and the fish finally let go

23:35they were able to get jim's brother back to shore

23:41the assailant had left behind two big puncture wounds

23:44and it's bleeding so profusely that they're really worried that he could be in danger he could maybe

23:52even bleed to death they made a makeshift tourniquet out of vines and hoped for the best

23:58despite his injuries jim's brother survived the attack

24:09it's all starting to add up the large puncture wounds sound very similar to andrews

24:16what this big blackfish blackfish and jim's description of the fish matches all the others

24:24i've heard size shape and color

24:31so although the attacks are 60 years apart

24:34i believe the same type of fish is responsible

24:39and jim has a name for the assailant

24:43mogillo

24:44mogillo

24:47it's not a name i recognize

24:53linking all these attacks is a major step forward but i still have no idea of the perpetrator's identity

24:59jim's story does give me one other piece of information though

25:07the recent incidents were all in the ocean but jim's brother was attacked in the brackish waters

25:14of a river mouth

25:17my boatman john knows the spot

25:20estuaries can be very interesting places because this boundary between fresh and salt

25:30it's almost like a barrier most salt water species they can't go up the river most river species can't

25:37continue to the sea but you you get a certain amount of mixing you get a certain amount of mixing

25:42of the water and also a certain amount of mixing of species so it's the kind of place where you can

25:48sometimes find a surprise

25:53this location could be a breakthrough because it's possible that what i'm after isn't just a marine fish

26:02because i'm after a carnivore i'm going to be using a dead fish

26:07quite smelly this one the thing is when i put it in the water the current is going to take out a nice trail

26:13unweighted the bait would get washed away by the current

26:21so i'm using a big lump of dead coral to hold it on the bottom where there's a much better chance of

26:27getting a strike

26:31i'm tying the weight onto the main line with weak monofilament

26:35so that when something takes the bait it will snap off and i won't have to haul in the rock as well

26:47no need to cast this i'm just going to lower it off the back of the boat and the current will take it

26:50down some way

26:59i've barely set my rig when there's a bite

27:04here we go here we go here we go here we go here we go here we go

27:08yes yes yes

27:13here we go push on

27:20i'm in papua new guinea hunting down an assailant that's been terrorizing remote fishing communities

27:33my prime suspect is a fish known locally as the mogilum and my investigation has revealed that in

27:41addition to attacks in the ocean it has struck in a river mouth where salt and fresh water mix

27:50here we go here we go here we go here we go here we go here we go here we go yes

28:00here we go fish on

28:03it's here it's this side

28:07it's about five feet long whatever it is is about five feet long

28:15there it is

28:17an unmistakable fin breaks the surface

28:22it's a juvenile bull shark at home in salt water but also comfortable in the brackish water

28:28of a river mouth

28:31we're going to get in the boat have a have a slightly closer look at it

28:34so if i just lift up

28:36here one's going to get the tail

28:39let's go

28:44there it is

28:49we have to be careful the shark's highly flexible cartilage skeleton allows it to bend back on itself

28:55in ways that bony fish can't

28:57the thing with this is you know just

29:01half a second lack of concentration you've got you've got a hole in your arm and you okay

29:10this is about the right size for the fish that bit jim's brother but look at the teeth

29:18i've seen the mark of this beast before

29:20normally hidden by gums its teeth like almost all sharks leave behind a distinctive crescent shaped bite

29:27so sharks aren't on my suspect list

29:33their jaws just don't match the puncture wounds i'm investigating

29:38it's interesting to see what's in these waters in the way of predators

29:44i think

29:46it's still it's still alive i think it's time to put this over the side

29:50although it's a biter this one's just trying to take a chunk out of me

29:55this isn't the mogu that jim talked about

30:04off it goes

30:08i've been invited to a gathering at the village of attack victim andrew

30:24the man who sports a scar from the mystery assailant

30:28it's a celebration called a sing sing where tribes people meet to share music dance and stories

30:35for me any event like this is a chance to meet potential witnesses and uncover more information

30:46i can also bring andrew up to speed with my investigation

30:51i tell him that i've widened my search for his attacker to the river mouth

30:55stop and it's then that he gives me a tantalizing clue down the water

31:01uh okay you like him story blue piece okay uh this is a piece then over long fish

31:07i'll save a locate long most of the water but look and stubble this is the same place

31:13yeah only move up the river this is a very interesting extra piece of information

31:17he's saying he has seen a large fish moving from the estuary up the river

31:29andrew knows it wasn't a shark but he says it was large and dark

31:35so now i have reports of unidentified dark colored fish in three different places ocean estuary and up

31:43river and i'm wondering whether they're all the same fish so what could it be what is this fish that

31:50old jim called mogilu one thing's for sure if i'm going to find it i need to take this investigation

31:57somewhere i never thought i'd have to i think i've just seen something that's actually been staring

32:03me in the face for a while i've checked out the reef i've checked out the estuary and i thought i'd run

32:09into a bit of a dead end but after what andrew has just told me there is of course one other

32:13place that i just must go investigate if this fish can straddle the salt and freshwater divide

32:26and go up rivers it's part of a very select club whose other members include not just bull sharks

32:35but sturgeons and salmon neither of which live here

32:46this is suddenly feeling a lot more like familiar territory for me moving up into fresh water this

32:50wonderful wild jungly river and what gets me particularly excited about this place is by all

32:56accounts this is unexplored my boatman john tells me that the few tribes that have pushed this far into

33:07the jungle lead isolated lives and have little contact with the world beyond the forest

33:16visitors are rare but he has heard of one other outsider who has been given permission to be here

33:21any local knowledge is a good thing so we're on the lookout for his camp

33:31exploring the river upstream we spot some signs

33:35his name is rickard and it turns out he's a field researcher for an australian university

33:52as part of his studies he's investigating what species inhabit this river system

33:56um i use small underwater cameras and we position them in areas where i think the fish are congregating

34:02like the snags and like those weed beds out there

34:07rickard has an amazing setup for a place so remote and he's built up quite an archive of what's in the

34:12river you see every now and then we get the small um fish um i've got a lot of good footage of some

34:21what i think could be new species the camera gives me a window on what conditions are like under the

34:27water here i'm instantly thinking fishing and and you're just asking to get sort of hung up on all

34:35this stuff aren't you i mean there's a lot of dead wood and stuff under the water

34:40as we scroll through more footage something huge comes into view so what is that that is what the locals

34:48call the mogu that's the mogu that's the mogu finally my elusive suspect is revealed

35:06i've zeroed in on my prime suspect for a spate of attacks in a remote coastal region of papua new guinea

35:13the locals call it mogu and a researcher has just shown me film of one taken far up an uncharted river

35:23that's the mogu that's the mogu this is totally unexpected

35:30i recognize it as the papuan black bass a fish i've always thought of as a fresh water species

35:35so i never considered it for the attacks in open ocean i thought the same that they're fresh water

35:43fish but in actual fact we're starting to discover now that they do move into the salt water that's

35:49actually really interesting because until this point everything was was not making a lot of sense but

35:54that bit of information i mean suddenly everything that i've been hearing up to now

35:59just falls into place it all starts to make sense

36:06ricard captured the images of black bass an hour upstream from his camp

36:12so that's where john and i are heading

36:17the papuan black bass is renowned for its power and aggression

36:20i've never caught one so i'm excited by the prospect of going up against this jungle river gladiator

36:29and by catching one i'll be able to see for myself whether it has the hardware capable

36:34of causing the attack wounds i'm investigating the tribes living in the jungle own all of the rivers

36:47and to fish here i must have their permission

37:09in papua new guinea it's customary for visitors to present a gift when they enter a tribe's territory

37:14so i give them some of our rice

37:22i'm possibly the first westerner they've ever seen but once john has explained my mission

37:28they're happy to grant me permission to fish

37:32so it's it's okay for me to fish here that's not not a problem for for you

37:38before i head off the villagers recount their own experiences with the black bass

37:49or mogilu

37:51and big

37:52the little ones you you you catch and eat eat them who's but the big one

37:58big one no always

38:00and always break they say that they do fish for mogilu the big ones they say break the line

38:07and if if it weren't to break the line apparently if a big one gets close it could go for

38:11one man has told me that the best place to find them is a bit further upstream

38:28i've actually anchored here for a reason this is a confluence and it's a bit like a miniature

38:44version of the famous meeting of the waters in the amazon you've got the the cloudy water

38:49with the dark sort of tea or coffee stained water coming in so you get this very clear boundary

38:56between the two and then for a long way downstream you've got an area of mixing and it's a classic

39:02place for predators to hang out particularly in the cloudy water and pouncing out into the

39:07clear water to to grab unsuspecting prey fish

39:11my game plan for getting a black bass is to cast to where the clear and cloudy waters meet

39:21then work my lure along the boundary

39:26something goes for it almost straight away

39:31yes that's a good size fish that's a good fish a good fish

39:34off and it's off it's off it's off

39:36but it's left something behind

39:43i've got some tooth marks i've got one two three they're quite widely spaced

39:48pointed teeth by the look of it and one here has actually gone in quite a long way which

39:52makes me think of that scar on andrew's leg that single hole and here we've got something that's made

39:59quite a deep hole in such a hard plastic

40:07i'm clearly in the right place but time looks like it might be against me

40:17that doesn't sound good

40:18black bass are sight predators and the muddy runoff from the banks means they won't be able to see my lure

40:33carrying on this is futile

40:35the river has transformed overnight with whole trees being washed downstream

40:51and the water has completely clouded up

40:55this has happened very very quickly the thing is for this to get back to normal is going to take

41:01several days that's if it doesn't rain again if it does rain again it's going to stay like this

41:05it's it's it's going to possibly even get worse

41:09my only realistic option of catching a black bass now is to head back downstream

41:17to the river mouth

41:21swapping the confined space of a river for a bigger expanse of water

41:25would normally make catching one even more of a lottery

41:32but as the river widens it slows the sediment starts to settle and the water mixes with the ocean

41:38making it clearer better conditions for site predators like black bass

41:49this looks like quite a nice spot here there's the main current

41:52uh flowing down to the estuary just there um but there's a little slack there i think we can tuck

41:58in there we can be in a bit of a little bit of shade which is always nice i'm going to use a different

42:04tactic i'm ditching the lures and going with bait

42:10and i'll cast out to the edge of the deep channel

42:12this could be my final chance to do battle with the elusive black bass

42:29oh here we go there's something on there

42:40i'm in papua new guinea fishing for a black bass a possible culprit for a string of vicious attacks

42:50spanning 60 years and three kinds of water

42:56i've been washed out up river and my only hope of catching one now is in the river mouth

43:02and it looks like i've got something on the end of my line oh here we go there's something on there

43:13let's go out this way a bit yeah

43:18yeah yeah yeah yes yes yes that's a fish

43:22motoring over to where the fish is at the moment uh it looks like it's

43:25well clear of the bank the problem is there could well be sunken snags down here shortening the line

43:33shortening the line shortening the line yeah just keep coming this way into this clear bit

43:42it's a big fish yeah can maybe stop the motor stop

43:45this is good this is good here we go and oh there's the leader there's the leader

44:00i can see it now it's on the surface there it is it's a big bass this in the water

44:07yes yes yes yes yes yes yes wow

44:18well this is a big new guinea black bass

44:22this battle-scarred specimen is large but they can grow to twice this weight

44:31i think all the pieces finally fall into place it has the coloration that matches

44:36george's story of that mystery fish on the reef

44:43it has the teeth that could have inflicted that bite wound that i saw on andrew

44:50and having felt this on the end of the line no doubt about it uh the power if this thing

44:55grabbed hold of your leg and started pulling i think you'd go with it you'd go under the water

45:00this is the fish that i'm looking for this is the fish behind those stories

45:08when i set out to investigate these attacks i thought i was searching for a saltwater predator

45:17turns out i was only half right

45:19these attacks are part of growing evidence that black bass are able to straddle the worlds of both

45:27fresh and salt water

45:29it's an amazing adaptation that scientists are only starting to understand

45:37and for me it's encouraging proof that new monster mysteries are still out there

45:42waiting to be uncovered

45:52you

45:53you

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