Loch Ness Monster believers everywhere brace yourselves: Nessie
might just be a catfish.
As the lore
goes, the legendary creature is rumored to live in Scotland's Loch Ness lake.
There have been several reported sightings in history dating back to AD 565,
according to the Official Loch
Ness Monster Sightings Register. There are sightings as recent as
April 2015, but one longtime searcher now says that perhaps it wasn't the
famous creature.
Steve Feltham
has been searching for the Loch Ness Monster for 24 years, and he's recently
come to the conclusion that the legendary creature people have reported seeing
might have been a Wels catfish. These freshwater fish, native to Europe, can
grow to monstrous sizes and do look a bit terrifying. They can reach well over 600
pounds (272 kilograms) and more than 9 feet (2.7 meters) long.
He told Sky News that
he often picks up very large animals on his sonar, some reaching the size of a
car. "We get sonar contacts with things that are far bigger than any fish
that should live in this body of water," he said. "We only get one or
two decent sightings a year." He believes that the large catfish can explain
these sonar readings.
CNN couldn't
reach Feltham on Friday, but on his website, he chronicles his journey in
search of the mythical monster. In 1991, he sold his home and left his job and
girlfriend in pursuit of Nessie. He lives in what he describes as an ex-mobile
library van at Dores Beach on Loch Ness. He searches for Nessie full-time but
makes and sells figurines of the creature to tourists on the side to supplement
his income.
The Loch Ness
Monster can easily be described as Feltham's passion, and he realized it at a
young age. He first traveled to the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau, a group of
volunteers that also searches for Nessie, with his family when he was 7 years
old. He was immediately hooked.
Feltham stressed
that he has not claimed to have solved the mystery of Nessie and he fully
intends to continue searching for other plausible theories. And even if he has
solved the conundrum, he has no regrets. "I'm in my utopia living here on
the shores of the loch," he told Sky News.
The largest Wels
catfish that has been caught in the record book of the International Game Fish
Association weighed 297 pounds, but Jason Schratwieser, conservation director
for the association, explained that there are ones that have been caught that
are bigger than that.
"You know,
catfish get big and they are pretty scary looking," he said. They're so
large, he conceded that they could have the ability to eat a small child,
although they do not. "They're big enough that a giant one might be able
to eat a baby, but I don't think they are man-eaters."
These huge Wels
catfish are caught throughout the world, but primarily are seen in Spain and
Italy. In fact, in February Dino
Ferrari reeled in a whopping 280-pound, 8.75-foot-long catfish along Italy's Po
River.
Schratwieser has his doubts that the sightings could be
contributed to the large fish though, saying that they don't look like the
long-necked, dinosaur-type creature that one imagines when you hear
"Nessie." "If they (Wels catfish) were introduced to the lake
and had a viable population, I would expect people would catch them, you
know?"
While he doubts
that the catfish are what people may have seen, he also doubts the existence of
the monster, citing his pragmatic personality as a biologist. He says Nessie
stories may have just started as urban legends that people took too seriously.
"I think
people want to believe stuff like that. I think that it's exciting to think
that there are these strange things throughout the world," he said.
"But again, for a confined body of water like that, I would be surprised
if there was anything monster-ish in there."
Schratwieser has
other theories too.
"Well, that
region of the world is known for excellent whiskey. ..."
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