Go to the island to see the rare fish

The school of giant catfish opened their mouths wide to suck in prey.

My Hoa Hung is an island area, surrounded by the Hau River, so freshwater fish farming is strongly developed with more than 800 cages, rafts, and nets, considered the largest freshwater fish farming area in the province.

Raising giant catfish as ornamental fish

Most of them raise red tilapia, snakehead fish, white pomfret, etc. A few households raise giant catfish but in underground ponds. Rarely do they raise giant catfish in rafts because the economic efficiency is not as high as in underground ponds. After raising giant catfish for a few years, the owners sell the pond because the bigger the giant catfish, the slower it gains weight.

The rare fish have been raised in rafts for many years, but the owner of the fish, Mr. Huynh Tan Hai, residing in My Khanh 1 hamlet, is quite secretive, so few people know about the presence of the fish. Some tourists who come to this island, because they are familiar with the fish, are invited to go down to the rafts to see the giant catfish and feed them.

Giant carp is a family of carp and is the largest in size. In the past, they appeared a lot on the Hau River, Tien River, Vam Nao River, Chau Doc River in An Giang province.

Although it is a gentle freshwater fish, giant catfish can be “giant” in size, with some caught in fishermen’s nets weighing more than 200kg. In the past, because hunting was not yet banned, fishermen often cast nets to catch giant catfish. Catching a fish weighing 100kg or more is like raising a pig that is about to be sold.

Over time, along with other fish species, giant barbs have gradually become depleted and are facing the risk of disappearing. To preserve this rare and endangered species, scientists at the Southern National Aquatic Breeding Center under the Research Institute for Aquaculture II in An Thai Trung, Tien Giang Province (now Dong Thap Province) have successfully bred giant barbs artificially.

After that, the fish fry were purchased by domestic aquaculture households to raise for economic purposes. During the release of fish into the wild to restore the native and rare fish resources, An Giang, Dong Thap, and Vinh Long provinces also released giant catfish.

Back to Mr. Hai's giant catfish school. We went down to the fish raft with the officials of the My Hoa Hung Farmers' Association. The fish raft was strictly guarded, when meeting strangers, the workers and the raft owner refused to let them down for fear of affecting the giant catfish.

We spread bait on the raft, schools of giant catfish competed to surface to eat the bait, many opened their mouths wide like bowls to suck in the bait. Some fish ate while vigorously swishing their tails, splashing water everywhere.

Mr. Hai said he has been raising sweet fish for more than 15 years. In 2015, he went to the Southern National Aquatic Breeding Center to buy more than 1,000 baby giant catfish to raise.

After a period of raising, he filtered the fish and brought out the healthy fish weighing more than 1 kg to the fish cage for testing. Mr. Hai said that the owner of the pond raised giant catfish weighing 15 kg/fish for sale after a few years.

His group of giant catfish raised in rafts has some weighing more than 8kg, some over 30kg. At first, he planned to sell them, but then he reconsidered and kept the group of more than 200 fish in rafts as a hobby. So since the time of stocking, some of the fish are 10 years old.

In An Giang, there are also people who raise giant catfish as ornamental fish like Mr. Hai, but they raise them in ponds and the number of ornamental giant catfish is very small. They have fun feeding giant catfish. Some people raise giant catfish for a long time to serve guests at parties.

Mr. Hai raises 10-year-old fish as ornamental fish.

Mr. Hai said that when he first released the fish into the raft, they continuously hit the raft's walls. Before that, Mr. Hai had put a net around the inside of the raft, so the fish hit the net, not the wood, so they were only slightly injured. Later, when they got used to the new environment, they were less "unruly".

Mr. Hai said: “The characteristic of giant catfish when raised in ponds is that they often use their mouths to poke the ground and when they are released into rafts, it is the same. Like a few days ago, I bought 2 small giant catfish weighing more than 4kg that were caught by fishermen in nets. When released into rafts, they poked the raft very hard, so their mouths were seriously injured even though there was a protective net.”

Developing tourism to see giant catfish?

Officials of the Farmers' Association of My Hoa Hung commune said that recently, the island has developed tourism, attracting tourists to visit the President Ton Duc Thang Memorial Site, experience the life of the garden and river areas...

And through consulting tourist attractions, it shows that there are few places in the Mekong Delta that can raise more than 200 giant catfish in rafts like Mr. Hai's household, so if investing in tourism to visit giant catfish raised in rafts, it will be an interesting place that attracts attention.

The school of giant catfish is used to being fed so it is very tame with people.

For example, rearranging the fish raft space to be neater and more beautiful, building a bridge for tourists to easily go to the raft. Then selling tickets for tourists to see the giant catfish, buying bait to feed the fish will certainly attract the curiosity of tourists.

The fish are bold so they do not hide and dive deep when visitors feed them. And through that, it also helps young people approach precious fish, learn more about the giant fish of the vast river region.

Officials from My Hoa Hung commune said that last May, a group of foreign tourists came to visit the island and they took them to see the giant catfish raft. The group of tourists enjoyed feeding the fish and recording the giant catfish school.

My Hoa Hung recently had a model of visiting fish rafts of Mr. Muoi Thuan - also known as Nguyen Van Thuan, a long-standing freshwater fish farmer. This is a new model by Mr. Thuan in cooperation with My Hoa Hung Agricultural and Tourism Cooperative.

A corner of the raft village looks like Mr. Muoi Thuan's floating house on the river.

Mr. Thuan has 10 fish rafts. On the rafts, Mr. Thuan cleverly arranges ornamental plants and grows aquatic plants in pots such as the sesbania plant, so the fish rafts look like a poetic floating house on the river.

My Hoa Hung Agricultural and Tourism Cooperative develops a combination of taking tourists on a boat tour of the river, the landscape of the island and the final destination is Mr. Thuan's fish raft to experience freshwater fish farming.

And so, if invested properly, the giant catfish raft can be a connecting point to become a new unique tourist destination of the province. And from there, many aquaculture households can also be more interested in raising and preserving rare fish species.

This is as interesting as Con Son Islet, Can Tho city develops tourism from many unique models such as the flying snakehead fish model, or visiting Mr. Bay Bon's rare fish school.

THANH DUNG

Source: https://nhandan.vn/ve-cu-lao-xem-bay-ca-quy-post894948.html