Amazon fish found in St. Lucie River
Reported by: Bryan Garner
Email: bgarner@wptv.com
Last Update: 6:25 pm
Slideshow
Mike Iania, along with his son and the pacu fish he found in the St. Lucie River Saturday. (photo provided by Mike Iania )
PORT ST. LUCIE, FL -- January's cold snap has not been kind to aquatic life in South Florida.
Tilapia, snook and several other species of fish turned up dead in the Indian River Lagoon.
The cold stunned sea turtles into a coma-like state; hundreds had to be rescued and revived.
And the weather was blamed for the death of at least 8 manatees on the Treasure Coast, including one found today in Ft. Pierce.
But perhaps the strangest casualty of the cold turned up in Port St. Lucie this week, in the north fork of the St. Lucie River.
Mike Iania has caught plenty of fish at that spot over the years, but nothing like the one he found floating belly up in the river Saturday morning.
"It was 38 inches long, his girth was 17 inches wide and we weighed him in at about 52 pounds," said Iania.
He took the fish around to one bait shop after another, but no one knew what it was. Thats when he called in a biologist.
Dr. Grant Gilmore, formerly with the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, said it was a pacu fish that was found in the Amazon.
It turns out the pacu is actually a vegetarian cousin of the piranha.
"The creepy thing is its teeth are like human molars," said Ed Killer, outdoors writer for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers.
The pacu is an exotic pet. The one Iania found was a breeding female, ready to release its eggs.
"It was just amazing to see something that big coming out of this water," said Iania.
But like many tropical species the pacu could not survive the record cold temperatures that have now claimed thousands of fish in the Indian River Lagoon.
http://www.wptv.com/content/news/st...dian-river-lagoon/EGat9OT5vEK9FuS0HPtDgw.cspx
Email: bgarner@wptv.com
Last Update: 6:25 pm
Mike Iania, along with his son and the pacu fish he found in the St. Lucie River Saturday. (photo provided by Mike Iania )
PORT ST. LUCIE, FL -- January's cold snap has not been kind to aquatic life in South Florida.
Tilapia, snook and several other species of fish turned up dead in the Indian River Lagoon.
The cold stunned sea turtles into a coma-like state; hundreds had to be rescued and revived.
And the weather was blamed for the death of at least 8 manatees on the Treasure Coast, including one found today in Ft. Pierce.
But perhaps the strangest casualty of the cold turned up in Port St. Lucie this week, in the north fork of the St. Lucie River.
Mike Iania has caught plenty of fish at that spot over the years, but nothing like the one he found floating belly up in the river Saturday morning.
"It was 38 inches long, his girth was 17 inches wide and we weighed him in at about 52 pounds," said Iania.
He took the fish around to one bait shop after another, but no one knew what it was. Thats when he called in a biologist.
Dr. Grant Gilmore, formerly with the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, said it was a pacu fish that was found in the Amazon.
It turns out the pacu is actually a vegetarian cousin of the piranha.
"The creepy thing is its teeth are like human molars," said Ed Killer, outdoors writer for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers.
The pacu is an exotic pet. The one Iania found was a breeding female, ready to release its eggs.
"It was just amazing to see something that big coming out of this water," said Iania.
But like many tropical species the pacu could not survive the record cold temperatures that have now claimed thousands of fish in the Indian River Lagoon.
http://www.wptv.com/content/news/st...dian-river-lagoon/EGat9OT5vEK9FuS0HPtDgw.cspx
