While lounging on her back porch on a July weekend, Janna Clinton was watching her 11-year-old son catch fish in the pond located behind their Oklahoma house.
She bolted from her seat and hurried to her son, who was startled by the thing hanging at the end of his fishing line when Charlie began shouting for mom.
To learn more about the unusual pacu Charlie caught, continue reading!
The pond behind the Clinton residence is a great place to catch and release bass and catfish. However, on the weekend of July 14, Charlie phoned his mother Janna for assistance after catching an unusual-looking creature with just a piece of bread as a bait.
“He exclaimed, ‘Oh my God, mother!’” “Oh my God,” said the mother. “To be honest, I thought he was just being dramatic.”
She looked closer and saw that the catch had teeth that resembled those of a human.
It’s not every day that your son captures an invasive species of fish that was unlawfully in our community pond.That has a person like that.
Naturally, since this is a local pond, we’re accustomed to catching little amounts of catfish or bass.She described the fish as being quite feisty and remarked, “I mean, nothing with human-like teeth.” Charlie mentioned that it put up quite a struggle. He was the only one fishing down there, and he performed admirably.
Locals who viewed the photos and the post by the Clintons on their neighborhood Facebook page had the following things to say: One person wrote, “What in the world!?!?” while another exclaimed, “THOSE ARE HUMAN TEETH.” That is eerie!
Some recommended the family make contact with the wildlife. “That’s definitely not a catch and release situation!” One homeowner thanked the others for their seriousness, adding, “You might want to report that to someone in wildlife or something.”
The family put the fish back into the pond before contacting the local wildlife about their spooky catch of the day.It’s a pond for catch and release.Because we were ignorant at the time, we regrettably did leak it back,” Janna said. “There, we made a mistake.”
The family found out that Charlie had captured a pacu, a native of South America and a relative of the piranha. The pacu is mostly a vegetarian with square teeth and a small overbite, in contrast to its omnivorous cousins with razor-sharp teeth and an underbite.
Wildlife experts are still baffled as to how it got into the pond in a suburb north of Oklahoma City. They believe it was a pet that outgrew its tank and was let loose into the wild.
The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC) tweeted, “Dear, whoever released an entire Pacu (a South American fish closely related to Piranha) into a NEIGHBORHOOD pond; how dare you.” The message was directed at the animal’s former owner.
Many in the online community were taken aback by the Tweet’s sharp edges, which sparked discussion.
One perplexed user questioned, “WHY DOES IT HAVE HUMAN TEETH?”
“I don’t know why we didn’t make them,” ODWC retorted, delivering an additional message: “Charlie Clinton caught your fish.” He is eleven years old. NEVER LET GO OF YOUR PETS. They are an exotic and invading species that have the potential to harm our regional ecosystems. This may result in a terrible scenario that would be extremely harmful to the ecosystem.
This was not Oklahoma’s first case of pacu. Less than two hours away from the Clintons, in July 2018, 11-year-old Kennedy Smith took a pacu from Marina Cove in Ft. Cobb Lake.
At the time, Oklahoma Game Wardens issued the following warning on Facebook: “…Pacu have been caught in a few Oklahoman fisheries previously. Most likely, people who bought non-native pacus as pets and released them after they outgrew the tanks in which they were kept are to blame for the species’ introduction into Oklahoman waterways. Pacu may weigh 88 pounds and grow to a height of 3.5 feet.
Despite the fact that these repulsive fish are usually safe for people to consume, the pacu have acquired the unsettling moniker “the ball cutters.”
When a pacu was discovered in the Oresund Sound in 2011, skinny dipping enthusiasts in Sweden received a warning.
Fisherman have allegedly bled to death after having their testicles bitten off, according to fish expert Henrik Carl. “There have been incidents in other countries such as Papau New Guinea where some men have had their testicles bitten off,” Carl said.
“They bite because they’re hungry, and testicles fit nicely in their mouths,” Carl went on. “Human testicles are simply a natural target,” he said, “but normally it eats nuts, fruit, and small fish.”
Charlie has been pursuing the pacu at the pond in Oklahoma in the meantime, attempting to bait it one final time.
When her kid goes fishing from early in the morning till late at night in the hopes of catching a valuable catch, Janna remarked, “He did stay at the ponds pretty late that night trying to catch it again.” We’ll have it mounted for him if he manages to capture it once more. That’s a huge award, in my opinion, and he deserves it.I informed him that we would create the illusion of a smile so you could see the fish’s teeth.
What a spooky fish the pacu is! Even still, we feel bad for the animal, taken from its native habitat and then placed in a new setting when its owner was unable to care for it. There are several reasons why this practice is unsafe, chief among them being the harm it does to the ecology.
How do you feel about the “ball cutter”?