- 2 days ago
River.Monsters.S03E01
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00:00Animal Planet, surprisingly human.
00:08Papua New Guinea, a land renowned for cannibalism, macabre rituals, headhunters, and bitter tribal conflict.
00:17But now, something new is ripping through the heart of this island.
00:21A creature that is tearing chunks from unsuspecting fishermen, devouring certain body parts.
00:30My name is Jeremy Wade, biologist and extreme fisherman.
00:35I've spent my life searching for freshwater monsters.
00:40I'm heading to Papua New Guinea to find out what has acquired the taste for one particular part of the human body.
01:00Details about the attacks are unclear.
01:03All I have to go on are a few sketchy reports from newspapers and the internet.
01:07The incidents first surfaced in the Australian press, which reported two separate but very similar fatal attacks in the Sepik River in the remote northern region of Papua New Guinea.
01:19Patrick Moe had just returned from a long day on the water.
01:25He was bathing in the river margins right in front of his house when it struck.
01:33He was hit by a powerful lone hunter.
01:36A fast swimmer with jaws like a vice that ripped and tore his flesh.
01:43Moe had a certain body part bitten off.
01:47As a result of which he bled to death.
01:57The second attack was eerily similar.
02:03Francis Sambin went to the river to wash dishes and cool off.
02:07Something he had done countless times before.
02:10But this time, it was to be very different.
02:15This time, he would not be going home.
02:17I've tracked freshwater killers all over the world, but this is my first visit to Papua New Guinea, which lies north of Australia, where the Coral Sea meets the South Pacific.
02:42It is one of the most dramatic and untouched islands anywhere on Earth.
02:56Despite more than 50,000 years of human habitation, this landscape has changed little since prehistoric times.
03:03Much remains unexplored.
03:05Much remains unexplored.
03:07New species are regularly discovered.
03:09So is the river Kila a new arrival, or has it been hiding away for centuries?
03:21It is only now that I begin to realise the sheer size of this island, and the remoteness of the area where I'm heading.
03:28There's just an awful lot of forest out there.
03:33I'm used to flying over forest in the Amazon, but this is very different.
03:36While the Amazon tends to be very flat, most of it, here we're talking serious mountains, and just completely cloaked in greenery.
03:43And the other thing is, in the Amazon, if you look carefully, you can see buildings down there.
03:48You can see tin roofs occasionally glimpsing back at you, and clearings in the trees.
03:52But here, just none of that at all.
03:54It appears to be completely uninhabited down there.
03:58These steep-sided mountains, and impenetrable forests, led to isolation and diversity among its plants and animals.
04:06And suspicion, and bitter tribal conflict between its people.
04:12Tribal fighting still exists in the less accessible mountain regions.
04:16But right now, it is the water level that concerns me.
04:25We're now approaching the floodplain of the Seapik River, and there's a lot of water there.
04:31I mean, this is supposed to be now into the dry season, but I'm still seeing lots of water, not just confined in the banks of the river, but spreading throughout the landscape.
04:41And the fish and everything else in the water are going to be very spread out, and it's going to make my job pretty difficult.
04:47Rising in the central mountains, the Seapik River snakes for over 700 miles through impenetrable forest.
04:59This is one of the last great unexplored rivers.
05:03It is to Papua New Guinea what the Congo is to Africa, and the Amazon is to South America.
05:08After four flights, 48 hours, and 9,000 miles, I arrive in Ambunti, in the remote northwest corner of the country.
05:19I've never been here before, so I'm not too sure what I'm getting into.
05:24There's no roads here, so I think there's stuff coming out of the plane now, and then it's onto the water.
05:30My base for the next two weeks is a village deep in the heart of the forest.
05:40These tribes are cut off from the outside world.
05:44The only way in or out is along this river.
05:50Little has changed here for centuries.
05:54Their culture is rich in superstition, myths, and mystery.
06:00And they are notoriously wary of outsiders.
06:05I'm met by one of the elders.
06:08I sent word of my intended visit many months ago.
06:11Turning up unannounced is not taken kindly.
06:16I do my best to smile and look friendly.
06:21But I'm not getting much reaction.
06:23This was once the site of human sacrifice and even cannibalism.
06:39Now, it is the place of worship and ceremony, and where outsiders are called when they visit.
06:54But I'm not too sure how welcome I am.
06:56I've been hearing stories about something in the water attacking people.
07:09Is this something that you know anything about?
07:13There are over 700 languages in Papua New Guinea, but the trade language common to all is pidgin.
07:34They also understand a little English.
07:39The thing about pidgin is that there are English words that are recognisable, and in the middle of that was a phrase, a ball cutter.
07:51There's something in the water called a ball cutter.
07:53And this does agree very much with the stories that I've heard.
07:59People have been coming out of the water with injured genitals.
08:05It's interesting.
08:06You know, the first place that I've asked, yes, yes, we know about this.
08:09This is, this is, there is something dangerous in the water.
08:15So is these injuries, people being attacked, is this something that has happened here?
08:21So it sounds like this is something they've heard about here, but nobody here has actually been attacked, or at least not yet, anyway.
08:31And they're saying the stories, coupled with the name of this, this animal, the ball cutter, you know, it is something that they are afraid of, they're very worried about.
08:38Particularly mothers are very concerned that their children are very careful in the water.
08:45For villagers living here, avoiding the river is virtually impossible.
08:49Their lives revolve around it.
08:54Now, somewhere down there, is a creature with teeth sharp enough to emasculate a man.
09:01Causing him to bleed to death in minutes.
09:04I've investigated similar incidents before.
09:08Fish on! Look at that!
09:12Croissant!
09:12In central Africa, I caught a goliath tigerfish, a species that has attacked and killed people in the Congo River.
09:22All we've got to worry about now, is it biting its way out?
09:28But that is 9,000 miles away, and goliaths are not found around here.
09:32The village elders told me that none of the native fish species would be capable of inflicting such horrific injuries.
09:44But something out there is responsible for these fierce attacks.
09:48And I've no idea what it could be.
09:50I've not been here before, so I don't know what fish I'm likely to catch.
10:08But what I'll probably do, I'll probably start off light.
10:10Some light line, little hook, and a small bit of bait.
10:13And try and catch some small fish.
10:16That will give me, or start to give me, a picture of what's down there.
10:19And then what I'll do, I will try and move on to fish further up the food chain that are feeding on those little fish.
10:25And to catch the predators, well, I've got a selection of artificial lures, which resemble small fish.
10:32But I might also just put a bit of dead fish on my line.
10:37I've got some bigger hooks for that.
10:38And because predators are very likely to have teeth, I've got some wire along as well.
10:45So basically, I've just got a bag of bits, and I'll sort of make it up as I go along.
10:49But starting with the small ones, and gradually working my way up the food chain.
10:56I've not been able to find out exactly where the attacks took place.
11:00But I do know that they occurred close to a village.
11:03So that is where I begin.
11:05A bit of coconut as bait.
11:08The villagers have told me that the fish around here find coconut irresistible.
11:14I'm fishing right in front of the houses.
11:16Two reasons, really.
11:16Fish often come very close to where people are.
11:19Simply because that's where people wash their dishes, all that kind of thing.
11:23Also shallow water.
11:24Fish, contrary to popular belief, tend to be found very often in shallows rather than in the deep.
11:29There's more light there, therefore there's more vegetation, therefore there's more food.
11:32And in no time at all, I get a bite.
11:39Oh!
11:41That's taken line off the clutch.
11:45Strong, strong fish.
11:47Oh!
11:48Oh!
11:48Let's have a look.
11:53Something's actually...
11:55That didn't break the line.
11:56I wasn't putting that much pressure on that.
11:59That's...
11:59No, that has actually cut it.
12:01Something down there has cut the line.
12:04That's interesting.
12:08I was fishing very, very close to the side and there's something down there with teeth.
12:10What's interesting, though, it actually took a bit of coconut.
12:14So you've got a vegetarian with teeth.
12:21My first piece of evidence.
12:24And now I've received word there's an attack victim in a nearby village.
12:30Could this be the clue I need?
12:34I'm on the trail of a river creature that has been attacking the genitals of fishermen.
12:50Word has reached me of an incident in a nearby village.
12:57Ramzin Tero was attacked while paddling his canoe.
13:01But his attacker wasn't a fish.
13:03It was a 20-foot crocodile.
13:06So what happened was that Ramzin was collecting palm fronds for roofing his house.
13:14And the first thing he knows is that a crocodile has actually come from underneath.
13:23He didn't see the body of the croc at all,
13:26but just came along and just crunched one end of the boat.
13:29The size of the crocodile's jaws were more or less the length of his arm.
13:36He said he could have actually put his arm right down its throat.
13:38That was the size of it.
13:40And at that point he's thinking, well, how do I get out of this?
13:43Ramzin sat it out in the tree until the croc eventually lost interest and he was able to get away on his broken canoe.
13:57He was lucky.
14:04Over the years, dozens of people have been killed by crocodiles in the Seapik River.
14:11This skin came from a 20-foot monster said to have learned to flip over canoes.
14:17Seapik River crocodiles certainly have a history of killing.
14:20But are they the ball cutter I'm looking for?
14:26The elders told me they doubt the native fish species here are capable of inflicting these injuries.
14:32But something did bite through my line, so I have to keep an open mind.
14:38I head out with Alphonse Mavassanye, a fisherman and crocodile specialist,
14:42to see if somehow a crocodile could be responsible for these unusual mutilations.
14:47He has brought me to the same area where Ramzin was attacked.
14:55Alphonse is actually going to try and call this crocodile to us.
15:05The splashing mimics the sound of a large crocodile moving quickly through the water.
15:10The call, that of a young one.
15:19Both sounds should attract crocodiles to us.
15:27Ramzin described the croc that attacked him as being over 20 feet long.
15:31But they kill by ripping and spinning, tearing at flesh and devouring huge chunks at a time.
15:42So it is unlikely that a large croc would only attack the genitals.
15:48But could it be a smaller one?
15:51Or is something else lurking down there?
15:54Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can see the eyes.
16:02Just on the edge of this bit of vegetation here.
16:05About 20, 30 yards in front of the boat now.
16:11Dense floating islands of vegetation.
16:14Perfect crocodile habitat.
16:17It's right in the vegetation.
16:18They can stay submerged for over an hour.
16:40You don't know they're there until they attack.
16:48Each time we spot one, it spooks and disappears.
16:54They seem very wary.
17:00But eventually, Alphonse grabs a baby one.
17:05So this one's a salty?
17:07Yeah, salty one.
17:08It's about one year old.
17:09One year old.
17:10So this could belong to the big one?
17:12This could be one of the children?
17:15One of the children for the big one.
17:17So the squeaking noise, what is the squeaking noise?
17:20Calling the mother.
17:21Is it really?
17:22Yeah.
17:22So you think maybe a good idea to put back now?
17:24Yeah, yeah, we can put it back.
17:27I can't be certain that crocs are not responsible for the attacks.
17:32But Alphonse tells me that they're rarely seen near villages now.
17:36And both the genital attacks occurred close to the victims' houses.
17:41I think something else in this water has a taste for human flesh.
17:44We saw one crocodile tonight.
17:48I suppose an animal about eight or ten foot, something like that, judging by the amount
17:51of light coming back from the eyes.
17:53But other than that, it's just been small ones.
17:56And I suppose in one sense, a bit of a relief not to come across the big one.
18:02But in another sense, I'm quite disappointed and also surprised that we haven't seen more
18:09crocodiles tonight.
18:11Alphonse tells me that in recent years, crocodile numbers are down.
18:16And it is only in the past few years that the attacks on people have occurred.
18:21Could it be that whatever is attacking the fishermen is also attacking the crocodiles?
18:27I once caught a species of fish capable of biting chunks out of crocodiles.
18:40Find out what it is right after this.
18:43The goliath tigerfish from the Congo River in Africa has been known to bite chunks out
18:52of ten-foot crocodiles.
19:02I'm on the Sepik River in a remote part of Papua New Guinea, 9,000 miles from home, on
19:09the trail of a creature that is attacking unsuspecting fishermen.
19:13Blimey!
19:15Strong, strong fish.
19:16I can hardly believe my eyes when I see what is on the end of my line.
19:21Looks like a piranha.
19:28It has got teeth.
19:31But they're not piranha teeth.
19:33Unless I'm very much mistaken, that looks like a fish that I know from the Amazon called
19:36a pacu.
19:36And the thing that gives it away is looking at the teeth.
19:39They're not cutting teeth.
19:41They are grinding teeth.
19:45I actually had my line cut a few days ago by a mystery fish here in the lakeside.
19:49And actually seeing this now, I think this is what it could be.
19:51Although they're grinding teeth, they have got quite sharp ridges on.
19:55And I think this is what it could have been.
19:58Unlike a piranha, these teeth are not designed for slicing through flesh.
20:01They are primarily vegetarian.
20:05They feed on things like nuts that fall in the water.
20:08So a very interesting catch.
20:11But I don't think this is actually the fish that I'm after.
20:15What's it doing here?
20:25The pacu is typically found on the other side of the world, in South America, and doesn't
20:30belong in the seapick.
20:32Puzzled, I meet up with Alphonse again.
20:34I just wondered if you can tell me what this fish is doing here.
20:40We civic people, we also, we were surprised to see this fish.
20:43But we asked the fisheries people, and they said they produced this fish in the river.
20:50What, you say produce, it was put here?
20:52Yeah, it was put here 15 years ago.
20:56So this was, it's a new fish to give, what, to give people something else to eat?
21:01Yeah, yeah, because there's no enough fish in the river.
21:05Maybe this is the way they put these species here.
21:11I've investigated introduced species before,
21:15and know the devastating impact they can have on a river.
21:19Absolutely stiff with fish.
21:21In the U.S., silver carp escaped from a fish farm.
21:25Their numbers exploded, and they now dominate entire stretches of the Illinois River.
21:30I actually feel the boat being buffeted as they're banging into it.
21:35The Wells catfish was moved from the cold rivers of northern Europe
21:39to the warm, rich waters of Spain, where they grew into monsters.
21:43The fish on that is...
21:44With no natural predators and ample food,
21:48both species have run amok, upsetting the natural balance.
21:51So could something like this now be happening in the Seapik River?
22:04Word of my quest is spreading through the nearby villages.
22:08I've been told of a fisherman named Nick Sarkat,
22:11who was savaged by something in the river which wasn't a crocodile.
22:15I was walking, I was cutting the grass,
22:20and I woke up to cool my body.
22:30I was just deep of water.
22:33Then I put something pumping onto my leg.
22:36And I was thinking, what's happening?
22:43I pulled my leg up, but it was coming again.
22:48And hit my leg.
22:50It's like human beings did,
22:54biting onto my leg,
22:55and pulled my leg down to the water.
22:57Then I swim up and struggle.
23:04The pain was very big.
23:08And then what you saw, the size of the bite,
23:11that was also similar to human teeth, was it?
23:13Yes.
23:14So it looks like a person has bitten your foot.
23:17Yes, yes.
23:17What are you thinking is down in the water?
23:19I was thinking that maybe the spirit,
23:23spirit of the water.
23:27Whatever is down there is not only fast and ferocious,
23:31it's also powerful.
23:38The village elders told me that there were only a handful of fish species out there,
23:43none of them capable of carrying out such an attack.
23:45I head out further from the village,
23:56along smaller tributaries.
23:59There has been so little exploration out here
24:02that new species are regularly discovered.
24:05Could it be that something unknown to science
24:07is responsible for these attacks?
24:09There's something in the water here that's actually attacking people.
24:11So what I'm doing now,
24:12I'm fishing to see if there's anything predatory down there.
24:14I'm putting a lure on.
24:17And what that will do,
24:18that will flash and wobble, vibrate.
24:21And that's the kind of movement that could get a reflex grab.
24:25So something with teeth is likely to go after this.
24:29I change locations and try different lures,
24:46but the result is always the same.
24:48I'm just not getting any interest at all.
24:56If this was an Amazon lake,
24:57a lake where you didn't have lots of commercial fishing,
25:00then I'd expect maybe four or five different species.
25:04Certainly some hits, but just nothing at all.
25:06So it just points to the fact
25:09that there's not a great deal
25:11in the way of predatory fish in these waters.
25:12Having drawn a blank in the flooded forest,
25:20as evening closes in,
25:21I head back towards the village.
25:23Each of the attacks occurred close to where people live,
25:27and the creature has clearly acquired the taste of the flesh.
25:31So what I need is a bait that tastes just like human,
25:35and considering their cannibalistic past,
25:37there are many people here who know just the thing.
25:50I'm in Papua New Guinea,
25:52searching for the perfect bait
25:54to catch a creature known locally as the ball cutter,
25:57because of its liking for a particular part of the male anatomy.
26:04In the days when the tribe's people here were cannibalistic,
26:07they called human flesh long pig,
26:10because the meat tasted so much like pork.
26:15So that is what I will use.
26:18It's obviously something that a predator would be interested in,
26:21but also with moving water here,
26:24what that will do,
26:25that will send a nice oily trail down current.
26:28So not just anything here,
26:29but if there's anything downstream,
26:30they might sniff that and move up and investigate.
26:33Okay.
26:37There it is.
26:49This looks like a paku.
26:50This is interesting,
26:51because this was on a piece of meat.
26:54So this supposedly vegetarian fish
26:57has just broken that habit.
27:00This paku,
27:01the piranha's vegetarian relative,
27:04seems to like the taste of flesh.
27:10There we go.
27:13So much for the vegetarian paku.
27:20If the paku are eating pork,
27:23then they could just as easily go for human flesh.
27:25So are they now taking on the behavior of their deadly relative,
27:34the piranha?
27:36I'm thinking that maybe I might have dismissed the paku
27:38as the possible perpetrator of these attacks too soon.
27:43In its normal habitat, the Amazon is a vegetarian,
27:45but it certainly has the weaponry
27:47to inflict serious damage on flesh.
27:50All it would need would be a motive.
27:52Now, if it turns out that there is not enough
27:55of its normal kind of food here,
27:57then it's going to do what any animal would do
27:59in that situation,
28:00which is to eat anything it can find
28:02in order to survive.
28:05Where piranhas are concerned,
28:06small means deadly.
28:08But paku can grow much bigger.
28:11Here in Papua New Guinea,
28:12there's virtually no commercial fishing,
28:14and there's also very little under the water
28:16in the way of predators.
28:18So it's quite possible that after only 15 years,
28:20you'd find a bigger paku living here
28:23than anything you'd find in the Amazon.
28:28So is this yet another example
28:30of an introduction gone wrong?
28:33Especially as the attacks only started
28:35after the paku's arrival in the Seapik River.
28:37In their native South America,
28:43there are 12 or more fish species
28:45that share the common name paku.
28:47The one that has been introduced
28:49into Papua New Guinea is among the largest.
28:52When young, this paku mimics
28:54the red-bellied piranha.
28:57But as they grow,
28:58they lose their red coloration
29:00and transform into formidable beasts.
29:04Paku are armed with jaws
29:05powerful enough to crush the hard nuts
29:08that fall from trees.
29:10These jaws are more than capable
29:11of ripping through soft human tissue.
29:15If it were to resort to piranha-type behavior,
29:18this river system would be forever transformed.
29:24A vegetarian-turned-carnivore
29:25may be scientifically shocking,
29:28but out here,
29:29transformation is a way of life.
29:35Tribes' people turn themselves
29:39into mythical beasts
29:40and carry out elaborate hypnotic dances
29:43to ward off evil
29:44or appease the river spirits
29:46when they are in trouble.
30:00Boys all along the Seapik River
30:02are transformed into men
30:03through bloodletting
30:04by having the skin
30:06on their chests and backs cut,
30:08leaving scars
30:09said to be the teeth marks
30:11of crocodiles.
30:13And now,
30:14if my hunch is correct,
30:16the paku is also undergoing
30:17a transformation
30:18from harmless vegetarian
30:20to flesh-eating river monster.
30:22Now,
30:27my focus is catching a paku
30:28capable of killing a man.
30:31At the village,
30:32I meet up with Alphonse.
30:33He tells me
30:34that since their introduction,
30:36the paku have been devastating
30:37the river system.
30:39You can see this lake here
30:41have just nothing now.
30:43Everything is gone.
30:46Big vegetation
30:48and clothing mat,
30:49it's gone.
30:50by this fish.
30:53So you're saying
30:54that before the paku was here,
30:57this whole area,
30:59even in the high water
31:00like now,
31:01was covered with floating weed,
31:03floating grass.
31:03Yeah, floating, yeah.
31:04And that's now gone.
31:05It's creating more problem
31:07for our local fish also
31:10because grass is for us
31:13for the fish
31:14and the crocodile
31:14and every animal
31:16in the water.
31:17Do the crocodiles
31:18have a problem
31:18with the paku?
31:19Crocodile have a big,
31:21big problem
31:22with the paku now.
31:25The floating mat
31:26is where the crocodile
31:27make nest.
31:29But you see
31:30that this big lake
31:31here has no floating mat.
31:34These floating islands
31:35are the remnants
31:36of what once
31:37covered the entire lake.
31:40The paku
31:40are quite literally
31:41eating the native species
31:43of the Sepik River
31:44out of house and home.
31:45but it is not only
31:49the grass
31:50that they are eating.
31:56Really?
31:57Yeah.
31:59You've seen that?
32:00Yeah, you've seen it.
32:01All the fish from this lake.
32:02The tale of destruction
32:03gets worse and worse.
32:05And also the paku
32:06eat small fish.
32:08The paku are eating fish.
32:10Really?
32:11They are attacking snakes
32:12as they swim
32:13across the surface.
32:14Snakes is where
32:15water birds also.
32:16Even water birds
32:17aren't safe.
32:18So you've seen 50 pounds?
32:19Small ducks
32:20have been eaten
32:20as they paddle around.
32:22Duck has eaten.
32:22Duck has eaten also.
32:24Right.
32:24This paku
32:25eat everything.
32:26Everything.
32:31The question is,
32:33does everything
32:34include a particular
32:35part of the male anatomy?
32:36To find out exactly
32:44what big paku
32:44are capable of,
32:45I need to catch one.
32:47I'm going to head
32:48deep into the flooded forest,
32:50where it is said
32:51hostile spirits reside.
32:53Out.
32:56Shh.
32:56I'm fishing the Seapik River in Papua New Guinea, on the trail of a river monster that
33:15has been inflicting terrible injuries on men's genitals.
33:22My prime suspect is the Paku, a vegetarian relative of the piranha that has developed
33:29a taste for meat.
33:33So far I have concentrated my efforts close to the village, but only caught small specimens.
33:40So now I'm changing tack and heading deeper into the flooded forest.
33:48The Seapik River people are extremely superstitious and believe that hostile spirits reside in
33:53the middle of these forests.
33:58For them, this is a menacing place.
34:01What we're doing is we're paddling very, very quietly through this area of flooded trees
34:10here.
34:12And there's some signs of fish, I've actually seen some fish actually chewing the ends of
34:15the weeds, and some fish actually swirling underneath these nut trees.
34:21So it's just moving slowly and just casting close under the trees.
34:28There are signs of Paku everywhere.
34:31The sound of fruit hitting the water alerts them and they race in to eat it.
34:49Another catch, but the red colouration tells me that again it's a juvenile.
34:55Maybe I have to go further in.
34:58We're going in there.
35:07Although I find myself drawn into local superstition, I'm more concerned about what is lurking among
35:12the root tangles.
35:17The heat in here is overwhelming, and the trees cut out any breeze, so the humidity is
35:22oppressive.
35:23This is very different from fishing.
35:28By the village, I mean there it doesn't matter if you make a noise, they're used to the noise.
35:32Here, the only noise they are listening for is the sound of falling nuts.
35:36Anything else other than that is going to scare them away.
35:40I mean personally, I really enjoy this sort of close quarters fishing where you're relying
35:47on stealth to get close to the fish.
35:50You're not sort of making a lot of noise and just casting a long way.
35:54The only way you can get a bait into these areas is by getting in close.
36:08Another catch, but this time the pull on the line suggests a larger paku.
36:15Not wanting to put my hands anywhere near those jaws, I use a long-handled grip to lift it
36:21out.
36:22They're getting bigger, getting bigger.
36:26The fish's muscular body makes it capable of bursts of speed.
36:30It could attack and make a quick getaway without being seen.
36:32That's not the size that I want to catch.
36:35I want to catch two, maybe three times the length of that.
36:40That's good to see anyway.
36:43As evening rolls in, I head back to the village.
37:00Word has spread of my investigation and a fisherman has come to see me.
37:07His name, Francis Sambin, is familiar.
37:12As he talks, I realize that this is the man the newspapers claim was killed by the bowl
37:17cutter.
37:18The stories that I heard, he didn't survive the encounter, but I'm very pleased to say
37:26that in reality, although this was a pretty terrifying experience by all accounts, he did
37:32actually live to tell the tale.
37:33the fish.
37:34Although the rumours of Sambin's death were exaggerated, the attack did leave him hospitalised
37:42and in agony.
37:45The fish was large and incredibly powerful.
37:47The bite was not a clean cut like a piranha's, but tore and ripped his flesh.
37:55And he struggled to fight it off.
37:59This echoes the story told to me by Nick Sakat.
38:01This giant relative of the piranha is, as I thought, growing to quite a size and with teeth to match.
38:19I begin fishing again, now fully aware of the strength of this creature.
38:25But the difficulty will not be bringing it in or even landing it.
38:29What worries me most is getting close to those jaws.
38:34I'm on the Seapic River in Papua New Guinea, fishing for Paku, a relative of the piranha responsible
38:50for attacking and mutilating the genitals of fishermen.
38:54Yeah, yeah, bigger one, bigger one, bigger one.
38:57There it is.
38:58Look at that.
38:59It's really big.
39:00It's really big.
39:01This could be the one I've been looking for.
39:02I know there's snags on the bottom, so I'm trying to keep it away from that.
39:05Yeah, just see it.
39:06This black water.
39:09You can just see it down there.
39:10Yeah, yeah, yeah.
39:11Oh, yes.
39:12I need to just keep it away from stuff on the bottom.
39:15But there's also people's houses in the water.
39:17Just keep it away from that.
39:19At the moment, it's in open water.
39:20That's good.
39:21I'll get it well and truly tied out before I try and do anything with this one.
39:26Then I need to examine it without losing a chunk of my hand.
39:31I don't want to rush it.
39:38Right.
39:39Oh.
39:40And that actually, just take a look at that.
39:43As I lifted it out, that straightened the hook as I lifted it out.
39:47Ooh.
39:48Ooh.
39:49Now this is interesting because I've just been seeing small ones of these.
39:55That is, that's a different animal from what I have been catching.
39:59This is more of a size.
40:02Ooh.
40:03Ooh.
40:04So the coloration on this is actually quite different from the small ones.
40:06The small ones have a very dramatic red belly.
40:08Which on this, you know, that's sort of faded away to this rather light orange.
40:13But the biggest difference is, gosh, very muscular fish.
40:22Just gave a bit of a kick there.
40:24This is all muscle here.
40:26So it's a very strong fish.
40:27Very powerful.
40:28But, um, I'm just...
40:30Ooh.
40:31I'm just trying to look at the business end here.
40:33Just look at that.
40:37On the small one, they were quite delicate teeth on here.
40:47I mean, those are real crushes.
40:50What this fish normally feeds on in the Amazon is seeds and nuts.
40:56And, you know, they often have tough cases to be opened.
40:59So these teeth, basically, they're nutcrackers.
41:02This thing really does look like a giant piranha.
41:06But the teeth on this, not designed for cutting, but for crushing and tearing.
41:13Seeing those teeth reminds me of all the stories I've been told about the attacks on people.
41:20It's like human beings biting onto my leg.
41:25Those teeth really do look uncannily like human teeth.
41:28And to be bitten by those, you know, I think that would be a very creepy experience.
41:32It would be just like being bitten by a person.
41:35I didn't experience the type of pain to get out.
41:39Come on!
41:40They say that when a piranha bites you, when it actually bites, you don't know what's happening
41:45because it's such a clean cut.
41:46But this would be a very jagged, messy tear.
41:50And I think you'd certainly know about this when this beat you.
41:54And if these fish hear something splashing in the water, they don't go heading the opposite direction like other fish.
41:59They come heading for that sound with those teeth bears.
42:03I'm left in no doubt that the Paku is the ball cutter.
42:13A vegetarian turned man-eater.
42:16An outsized piranha with a taste for human flesh.
42:20An alien invader running amok, dominating entire stretches of the Seapic River.
42:25The river people now accept that the ball cutter is something they have to live with.
42:30It's just a graphic example of the unintended side effects that you can get when you start meddling with nature.
42:36This nightmare may seem easy to dismiss as someone else's problem, far from our own backyard.
42:50But perhaps not.
42:53Paku have now turned up in 19 different states in the US.
42:58So far, numbers have not exploded, nor has anyone been attacked.
43:03But just as in the Seapic, things can change very quickly.
43:07And once the genie is out of the bottle, you can never put it back.
43:15Want more of the world's wildest, strangest, and most terrifying freshwater horrors?
43:20Visit our website at animalplanet.com slash rivermonsters.
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