220-pound catfish rescued after getting stuck inside flooded train station

The cat’s cradle was a tight rail hub.Rescuers had the ultimate catch-and-release experience after saving a monster Mekong River catfish that became trapped inside a flooded train station in Thailand.“It was one of the biggest I have seen,” Boonsong Tangrid told Viral Press of the dramatic rescue, which occurred in Chiang Mai on October 6.The Northern Thai city had been pummeled by floods caused when the Ping River overflowed its banks due to heavy seasonal rainfall, killing three and forcing dozens of people to move to shelters.Volunteers from Uttaradit Songkroh Foundation were en route to evacuating stranded residents from submerged homes when they spotted the “massive catfish” stuck outside a ticket booth at the Saraphi Railway Station, per Tangrid.“The water was at hip level and it could not swim through obstructions,” the volunteer lamented.He estimated that the behemoth — — which is native to the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia and parts of China — was over 3 feet long and weighed approximately 220 pounds (around the same weight as a refrigerator).The rescuers reportedly had to evacuate nearby residents so they turned the cat over to the station master to oversee until it was safe to release it.While certainly huge, this particular Mekong Catfish was a tiddler compared to other examples of the species, which can grow to nearly 10 feet long and weigh 660 pounds, per the World Wildlife Fund.The plus-size plankton eater held the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest freshwater fish from 2005 until 2022 when it was eclipsed by a 661-pound stingray that was caught in Cambodia.The Mekong’s massive size has made unsurprisingly it a veritable holy grail among freshwater anglers.

In fact, the species is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) due to overfishing, among other factors.Due to the fish’s scarcity, it’s currently illegal to target Mekong catfish in Thailand, Laos, ...