Re: oops, please delete
Without reading it i think it's a load of ****. No fish actively goes programed to eat your balls. If you stick them in its mouth it's another story. Or wawe them in front of it as bait. It's as usual journalists who like to put fear in people. The same thing is with big frightening headlines on newspapers so people buy the paper to read. BS radar is going crazy.
Kim
I thought it bullshit too. At first glance I thought the photo was photoshopped...looked too un-natural...sort of like the dogs with human teeth selling puppy chow on commercials.. But I thought I would explore it a little. Here's what i learned....
Yes, the Pacu is real and its teeth do look like that. Native of South American and relative of the Pirhana. It is a pretty prolific invasive and has been found in a bunch of U.S. states and, it seems in Sweden, as well.
Yes, Carl Henrik of the Museum of Natural History in Denmark is real.. He writes on invasive fish species in Denmark -- good credentials so far.
Yes, there are observations of Pacu biting off fingers and toes (reported on Wikipedia) but there are no observations of a Pacu ever eating human testicles..... none that I can find.
Carl Henrik does not say Pacus have eaten Swedish testicles, nor does he say it is likely. He only says it is possible. Of the dozens and dozens of internet articles on Pacu threats to testicles, all are traced back to this off-hand statement by Mr. Henrik. It would seem Mr. Henrik uttered the statement as a way of titilating whomever was listening... By the time it got repeated several hundred times it has risen to scientific fact and dire warnings.. This is a pretty common internet pattern for stories... An offhand comment is converted to bullshit after enough iterations.....
Two other non-scientiific observations. Ever took a dip in the Baltic or North Sea? I'm willing to bet there are far fewer skinny-dippers there than Mr. Henrik would like us to believe! Second, I'm pretty sure that by the time Mr. Skinny Dipper hit the water, his dangly-down parts would be drawn so far up into his chest that breathing would be tough! Not much to entice a ravenous Pacu intent on feeding on testicles!
The wikipedia articles does not say whether a Pacu will rise to a fly or not, but I bet snagging one on a wooly bugger would add an element of excitement to a fishing trip...
