Conservationists in Cambodia on Friday celebrated the discovery of six highly endangered Mekong giant catfish in the critical Southeast Asian waterway plagued by illegal fishing, habitat loss and plastic waste.Fishermen smiled alongside officials from Cambodia’s Fisheries Administration (CFA) as they held up the two-metre-long creatures – weighing up to 130kg each – before releasing them back into their river habitat.The survival of the giant catfish – one of the largest and rarest freshwater fish in the world – underscores the urgent need to protect the river’s free-flowing connectivity, a statement by the USAID-funded Wonders of the Mekong conservation group said.Besides overfishing and plastic pollution, the Mekong River Basin has been degraded by upstream dams and climate change, which have had a major impact on water levels in the critically endangered catfish’s aquatic home.Its current population is unknown but is thought to have declined by around 80% over the last 13 years, according to the IUCN Red List.
