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Nessie hunter believes Loch Ness monster is ‘giant catfish’

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Gaertner
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« on: July 18, 2015, 03:20:51 am »




The image of a loveable dinosaur adored by all the family will probably remain. Picture: TSPL

Since then, he has kept a careful watch on the waters of the loch, but she has not shown herself again. However, he is now convinced Nessie is a giant catfish.

The Wels catfish, also called sheatfish, is native to wide areas of central, southern, and eastern Europe, and near the Baltic and Caspian Seas. It has been introduced to Western Europe and is now found from the UK all the way east to Kazakhstan and south to Greece. It is a scaleless fresh and brackish water fish recognizable by its broad, flat head and wide mouth. Wels catfish can live for at least 30 years and have very good hearing.

Their wide diet even includes other catfishes. The larger ones also eat frogs, mice, rats, and aquatic birds like ducks. They have also been observed lunging out of the water to grab pigeons on land.

Exceptionally large specimens are rumored to attack humans in rare instances, a claim investigated by extreme angler Jeremy Wade in an episode of the Animal Planet television series River Monsters following his capture of three fish, two of about 145lb and one of about 160lb, of which two attempted to attack him following their release.

A Wels catfish was reported in 2009 dragging a fisherman near Gyr, Hungary, under water by his right leg after the man attempted to grab the fish in a hold. He barely escaped with his life from the fish, which must have weighed over 220lb, according to the fisherman

Last year a fisherman has caught a giant 8ft 9in long catfish weighing 19 stone - which could be the biggest ever caught with the humble rod and line.

Dino Ferrari hooked the huge Wels catfish in the Po Delta in Italy.

Sightings of Nessie have become scarcer, but so far there have been three this year.

The last one logged on the official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register was on April 25. Dee Bruce of Elgin was driving to Skye with her partner Les Stuart when she saw a black creature come about three feet out of the water near the north end of the loch. It happened so quickly, she was unable to get a camera out to take pictures.

Two days earlier, a couple on visiting Urquhart Castle - above Nessie’s rumoured lair - reported seeing a large dolphin sized shape emerging from the waters.

Mr Feltham, who said he became obsessed with the legend of Nessie after a family holiday to the Highlands when he was seven, lives in a converted mobile library which is parked in a pub car park near the loch at Dores.

“At least my search for Nessie has given me the best view of the world,” said Mr Feltham, who makes money by creating models of the Loch Ness Monster and selling them to tourists.

Mr Feltham has become such a feature of the loch that he is even a member of the local community council.

“Film crews and journalists from all over the world turn up on a regular basis, and I answer all their questions, but they are invariably focused on one subject: is there a monster, or isn’t there? Which is perfectly understandable, but it frustrates me that I never have the chance to get an equally important point across: that if you have a dream, no matter how harebrained others think it is, then it is worth trying to make it come true. I’m living proof that it might just work,” he says on his website.

“Have I ever regretted my decision? Never, not for one second.”

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