They would be devoured by the adults if kept longer than that in the ponds. Alvez removes the young after six weeks, when they are already around 20 cm long. The females lay several thousands of eggs - although researchers have counted as many as 50,000 in the wild - and the fingerlings are closely guarded by the male after they hatch, forming a murky cloud around its head until they are big enough to swim away. I want there to be paiches in jungles like when I was a boy,” he says.Īlvez currently has 14 adult paiches, each about 1.8 m long, that he keeps as breeders. “I know that we overfished, and now my goal is to restock the Amazon. My paiches are being used to repopulate areas, and I am exporting them as far away as Japan and China,” where they are kept in ponds like koi, he says. “Everyone thought I was crazy when I started keeping paiche in my ponds, but it worked. He was the first to successfully breed paiche in captivity on a large scale.
Alvez is a pioneer paiche grower, having switched from fishing to fish farming in the late 1980s. However, the big fish is making a comeback thanks to efforts to reintroduce it into the wild and raise it through fish farming. The combination of taste and the ease with which it is landed nearly led to the demise of the paiche, which is included on a list of controlled species by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES.Ī decade ago, the paiche seemed to be doomed. Other fish breathe underwater, taking oxygen from water through their gills. Barely changed from the Miocene epoch (which ended more than 5 million years ago), the living fossil is easy to catch with a harpoon or net because it has to come to the surface to breath. It is often sought out for its tasty white meat. The paiche, also known as pirarucu or by its scientific name, Arapaima gigas, can grow up to 3 m and weigh up to 220 kg. ( MORE: Epic Mass Fish Deaths: This Time, Heat Is to Blame) There are still paiche out there, but they are smaller, and you have to know where to look,” says Alvez. “There used to be paiches in all the rivers and lakes, but not any longer. His prized catch was paiche, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, found in Peru’s Amazon and neighboring countries. Alvez, now 67, would go on to become a commercial fisherman, running ships that would ply jungle rivers for fish. Follow Alvez remembers growing up in the Peruvian Amazon, hunting for game and fishing along the Tigre River and nearby oxbow lakes with his father and grandfather.
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