A Bath man who ventured into Papa New Guinea on an angling trip for ITV1’s River Monsters programme, due to be aired next week, has come back triumphant after catching a deadly fish – which kills humans by biting off their testicles.
Jeremy Wade, a Bath resident, spent weeks hunting for the creature after locals in Papua New Guinea spoke of a mysterious beast which was hunting fishermen.
The fish, known as ‘The Ball Cutter’ was captured by Wade and fought into his small fishing boat. Wrestling the 40lbs creature, he was shocked to discover the tools used to harm the fishermen – human-like teeth. The teeth resemble a human set very closely, with the easiness of castrating the fishermen put down to this strange phenomenon.
In an interview, he said : “I heard of a couple of fishermen in Papa New Guinea who had been castrated by something in the water.
“The bleeding was so severe that they died. The locals told me that this thing was like a human in the water, biting at the testicles of fishermen. They didn’t know what it was.”
The Pacu fish, which are predominantly found in the Amazon, were introduced into Papua New Guinea 15 years ago as a way to build fish stock, but at the time the fish were vegetarian. They began their hunt for meat (of the human variety) after a lack of vegetation in the water left them beginning to starve and dwindle in number.
Jeremy is currently filming his fourth series of River Monsters, with the third series beginning to air on the 3rd January 2012.
