The 24-hour hotline helping save the world's biggest freshwater fish
The ‘megafish’ living in southeast Asia’s Mekong River once faced extinction. A new rapid response system is helping reverse their dire outlook.
1ByStefan Lovgren
Published June 22, 2026
Kampong Cham, Cambodia — In early January, at the peak of Cambodia’s fishing season, Chea Seila was driving north along the Mekong River when her phone began to buzz. The call came from another part of the river’s vast watershed, hours away. A fisherman had just hauled in a 209-pound Mekong giant catfish.
Seila, a member of a national rapid-response team formed to rescue imperiled megafish, turned her car around. Within hours, she and her colleagues were on site—measuring, tagging, and eventually releasing the critically endangered fish back into the water. Then her phone rang again.
This time the call came from near Phnom Penh, where fishers had accidentally caught a 172-pound giant barb, known as Cambodia’s “King of Fish,” also critically endangered. Once again, the rapid-response team mobilized, and before long this giant, too, was back in the river. “There were seasons when we didn’t hear about a single giant fish,” Seila said. “Now the calls keep coming.”
For species long thought to be disappearing, the surge is striking. Once abundant across the Mekong basin, giant fish were killed by overfishing, dams, and disruption to the regular rise and fall of water levels along the river. The Mekong, spanning six countries and supporting the world’s largest inland fishery, holds more megafish species than any river on Earth, some of which can grow over 600 pounds.
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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/rescue-hotline-saving-mekong-river-megafish
The Siamese giant carp (Catlocarpio siamensis), also known as the giant barb or ត្រីគល់រាំង, holds the world record for being the largest species of carp. Esteemed as the national fish of Cambodia, this remarkable species symbolizes the rich aquatic biodiversity of Southeast Asia and particularly the vital ecosystems of Cambodia’s rivers and lakes.
https://feelcambodia.com/2025/03/worlds-largest-species-of-carp/
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