News Forum - Salaween River reroute raises fishy fears: Ecological impact alarm

[Thaiger]

Concerns are mounting over the potential ecological impact of diverting water from the Salween River to the Ping River, with experts warning of a possible decline in fish stocks due to invasive species and genetic contamination. Fisheries biologist Apinan Suwannarak from Maejo University revealed that the Nam Yuam Dam project, which aims to redirect up … …

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[Ramanathan.P]

What is the ecological impact alarm going to be? Ping river is connected to the Chao Phiraya River.They  are not fully blocking, only diverting part of the river to Ping river. So the path for the fish to reach the estuary is always there and open. Further Salaween river starts from the Himalayas and running through all the way thousands of kilometers to the sea via Myanmar. How can diverting a small portion of the river cause huge ecological impact? May be it could cause some natural disaster as anything against nature is dangerous. 

[SnapDragon]

1. There was me thinking that the Giant Mekong Catfish was protected, and what did I see? Beautiful Mekongs, over one metre long, being sold for food at the River Market.

[Grumpish]

15 minutes ago, SnapDragon said:

1. There was me thinking that the Giant Mekong Catfish was protected, and what did I see? Beautiful Mekongs, over one metre long, being sold for food at the River Market.

They are on the CITES red list, critically endangered, but that rarely means anything in Asia. There are other very large catfish in the Mekong, could they have been those - an adult Mekong Giant Catfish has no teeth or barbels.

[SnapDragon]

57 minutes ago, Grumpish said:

They are on the CITES red list, critically endangered, but that rarely means anything in Asia. There are other very large catfish in the Mekong, could they have been those - an adult Mekong Giant Catfish has no teeth or barbels.

They were definitely G.M.Cats. Used to fish for them in Bansumran many moons ago.

Think they can grow to over 200 kilos. The third, or maybe fourth, biggest freshwater fish in the world.

[ChrisS]

4 hours ago, SnapDragon said:

There was me thinking that the Giant Mekong Catfish was protected, and what did I see? Beautiful Mekongs, over one metre long, being sold for food at the River Market.

Since when did endangered species ever mean anything to greedy Asian merchants. Thai mentality is always think about today don't worry about tomorrow. Short term gain will always win out over sustainability here.