Bushwalk Australia

"Tom and Holley Luft were fishing at Lake St. Clair on July 9 when Holley said she caught the 14-inch Pacu"

"In 2011, a Pacu was blamed for the death of two men in Papua New Guinea, who died from blood loss after something in the water had bitten off their testicles. Pacu's there have reportedly earned the nickname "the ball cutter.""


Tehee!

I quite enjoyed the fact that you posted this nuts :p.

Sadly (or thankfully?), I think this lake St Claire is in Michigan.

It caught my eye when searching for invasive aquarium fish, I struggled to pass on the humour
Not certain (yet) whether they are being sold in AU and whether they do (or don't) survive cold water..

(I think the cold water might make their preferred food source hard to find anyway.. )

If they can survive a Michigan lake I can't see them not handling Tassie waters.

If they sell those here, then it's a matter of time before they get around.

Red Pacu (Piaractus brachypomus) are a declared noxious species here though, still, I have seen reference of people owning them as pets. The Michigan Lake fish, and others, are thought to be randomly released 'pets', not breeding, but they have been popping up through Europe and making the news.. The PNG fish were actually 'stocked' for local fishing

There's been talk of using Pacu in aquaculture in Oz, they grow Big and fast... they are normally vegetarian living on berrys, fruit and.. nuts!

Testes! (Image found in google of the fish)

Travis.

Meh. Be grateful it wasn't one of the giant toadies you get in the Whitsundays. They'd have taken off everything below the waist.

Like this one NNW? Caught it off the Monkey Mia pier.
This bloke took a whole smaller toadie about 3" or 4" long in one gulp.
The pliers were all I had to compare the size.

That's not particularly big.
There was a monster who removed a few toes from people foolish enough to dangle their feet in the water off one of the Shute Harbour jetties. Not sure of the name - Thomas the Terrible Toadfish, or something like that.

Oh they do get big :



'Tankbusters', they get big, live for 20-30yrs and can be aggressive... so people set their pet free to live out it's life in the local watercourse..

Looks like one of those private carp fishing dams,in Europe,where people camp there for days,in the hope of pulling one of those overfed monsters ,with gravel rash out, & pay good money to do it.........

haha, yeah, another day, another hook in the mouth