[Photos] Saigon Man Catches 130kg Giant Barb In D9, Immediately Sells It For $10,000

Believe it or not, there are still some large fish left in Saigon’s waterways.

Crowds blocked the Rach Muong Bridge in District9 as a fisherman pulled a 130kg giant barb fish from the tributary of the Dong Nai River.

The fisherman, 35-year-old Tran Minh Dung, found the 1.5m long and 0.5m wide fish after returning to the spot where he had set fishing nets the night before, according to Vietnam Net.

"At first I did not know what species the fish was, then some people said that this was a giant barb, which are rare," Dung said.

A trader from Thu Duc quickly took the fish off the fisherman’s hands for VND192 million ($10,000) who literally threw it into the back of a taxi.

As you can probably imagine, a catch like this is rare. The giant barb, aka the Siamese giant carp, can only be found in the Mae Klong, Mekong and Chao Phraya river basins and is “critically endangered” due to overfishing and habitat loss.

It’s quite a catch for the poor fisherman but sad to see the city’s remaining wildlife meeting this kind of fate.

[Vietnam Net]