A 10 million dong bounty has stirred up a shark hunt among local fisherman in the central province of Binh Dinh.
To date the large fish, that is yet to be officially identified as a shark, has attacked ten times. Meanwhile fishermen are saying that catching the fish would mean three-time pay off.
“If we catch this fish, we will help protect sea-bathers. We will also get money from selling the fish and we’ll earn a bonus from the local government,” said fisherman Pham Ngoc Dung, who is preparing for the hunt and believes he will catch the fish based on his experience.
According to the Dung, who is certain that the unidentified fish is a shark, there are many ways to catch sharks using specialized nets and bait.
Fisherman Dung said: “I’ve caught sharks for six years. We often go out to sea in the second to the eight months of the lunar year because this is the time mother sharks swim near the shore to give birth. It is quite strange that sharks are appearing at this time”.
Fisherman Tran Van Chay who is called Tu Shark by local people for his shark-hunting skills, said: “In 2008 I caught four sharks. The smallest shark was 25kg and the biggest was more than 120kg”.
Chay said that the most valuable part of a shark is its fin. He said he sold the fin of the 120kg shark for 2 million dong and nearly 1 million dong for the remaining body.
On January 13 Dung and Chay ran a small boat to hunt sharks near the shore of Quy Nhon city. They used around 100 fish-hooks and worked until the early evening but the two senior fishermen didn’t catch the fish. However, both said they will continue to try.
After two days working with victims of fish and the vice chief of the Nha Trang Oceanography Institute Vo Si Tuan said that the culprit is a species of shark, named Euselachii or Selachomorpha.
However Dr. Tuan said experts cannot be sure until it is caught. It is also unclear whether there are one or many sharks in Quy Nhon sea.
He said that while it is normal to have shark in Quy Nhon sea it is not normal for sharks to attack people. “Attacks are normally very rare,” he confirmed.
Another scientist from the Nha Trang Oceanography Institute, Vo Van Quang, said that there are different kinds of sharks in the shark family. In Vietnamese seas there are a few species of sharks that can attack human. “However, there is no record of man-eating sharks in Vietnam,” Quang said.
Quy Nhon city announced it would pay a 10 million dong bonus to anyone who could catch the fish. The city also asked senior fishermen to make suggestions on how catch or prevent the fish from attacking people.
Nguyen Huu Hao, chief of the Binh Dinh Bureau for Aquatic Resources Exploration and Protection, said that in order to avoid disorder in catching the fish for the bonus, local authorities and related agencies will work together to control the situation.
Source: VNN