Giant Catfish Critically Endangered, Group Says

Today's release of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) updated 2003 Red List of Threatened Species shows that the flagship species of the storied river in Southeast Asia is classified as Critically Endangered, its numbers further reduced from its classification as Endangered in the previous IUCN Red List. The Switzerland-based organization's members from 140 countries include some 70 states, 100 government agencies, and 750 NGOs.

"P. gigas—the largest freshwater fish according to the Guinness Book of Records—is now very rare in northeast Thailand, southern Lao PDR, and Vietnam," said IUCN in a news release issued today. "Only 11 and eight fish were caught in 2001 and 2002 respectively. In 2003, fishers captured six giant catfish in Cambodia, all of which were released as part of the MekongFish Conservation Project."

The disappearance of the Mekong giant catfish is a sign of the slow decline of environmental conditions throughout the river. Like many species in the Mekong, the giant catfish needs great stretches of the river to migrate seasonally—and it must have specific water quality and flow to move through its lifecycles of spawning, eating, and breeding.

But the Mekong is under threat from human development. Millions of people along its banks in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam rely on the river for their livelihood. Growing pressure by fisheries, damming, and habitat destruction threaten not only the giant catfish and other species that live in the river—but also the welfare of the people who depend on the Mekong.

National Geographic News spoke to Zeb...