The Biggest Monsters of Season 3 ｜ River Monsters ｜ Animal Planet

But fantastic, here we go, that's the result, that's the result, that's lovely. So here we are, this is the wolffish, and the stories I've heard about these, absolutely fearless, anything comes near them, dogs, people, they'll go for it. So it looks like, it looks quite gap-toothed, but actually pull those lips back and you see they're very spiky fangs underneath there. After 11 gruelling days of fishing, I've hooked what could be the biggest totally freshwater river monster I've ever had on my line. It feels like it has come unstuck from the bottom a couple of times, but it's, it's just a, most of the time it's just a dead weight, every now and again there's a slight movement, it rises and then it sort of sticks down again. Rays stick themselves to the bottom, prying them off is like pulling the plug out of the river. This just feels like a dead weight, a dead weight, it could be in a tree, it could be in a tree. It's using all its bulk and the flow of the river to defeat me. What I'm going to do, I'm just going to take the boat upstream a little bit, and I'm just going to apply some pressure just from the other side, because if it is in a snag possibly, if I can just get a different angle on it. Jose has to manoeuvre very precisely in the strong current. That's a tail hitting the line, tail hitting the line. With a fish like this, I'm not in control. All I can do is react. Three hours. This is my longest battle ever, beating even the South African bull shark that took two hours and 45 minutes. My back and arms are now burning. That is fish, I think that is fish, that is fish, that is fish, that is fish. It's back, my manoeuvre worked. So a bit of tactics there, nothing was happening, nothing, nothing, nothing. And I think it might have just hooked the line around a branch, so we just changed the angle of the pull slightly. Look at that, there it goes, there it goes, there it goes. That's good, that's good. I want to get it to the beach where I can handle it safely, but that means coaxing it 200 yards further downstream. We've got it literally just 10, 15 feet from the bank. As the creature tires, I have it exactly where I want it. There it is, there it is, there it is, there it is, there it is. Finally, after perhaps the most punishing battle I have ever had, I land one of the biggest, strongest and most alien freshwater fish I've ever seen. The thing I really want to do with this one though is get it closer to the tail, I mean obviously not too close. And to think this is a fish that until recently I didn't even know existed. The chocho de rio is unlike any other ray I've come across. Okay, 50, nearly 53 inches. Which would make it easily 250 pounds. But what really makes this species stand out is that it is a killer, with a weapon as brutal as a medieval mace, like a club fortified with rusty nails which it drives in with its massive bulk. I might have to just kneel on top of the animal. Okay. That's what I wanted to look at. The dead animal I saw had its tail chopped off, this one has its sting intact, it's got two stings on there. And also by the look of it, you know, this can come a long way on either side, it's also very flexible. So I wouldn't want to get anywhere near this. Time to put this back in the water. My arms are just aching so much, I've been fishing solid for 11 days. If this feels anything like I do, it's very tired. What I'm about to do now is actually very significant, because this is a fish, and I always like to return fish alive, but this is a fish where, you know, the locals don't give it any quarter. This stingray has evolved to survive in totally fresh water. In fact, it is now thought to be incapable of living in the sea. On the Fitzroy River in Australia, I'm hooked into a beast that means business. Good size, good size. It's coming in quite close, it's already quite... I can't get on these rocks in here. I'm going to need someone to grab it. It's ready, I think. At last, the animal that's been swimming around in my head for nearly 20 years. Here we go, my first sawfish. Look at this for a beast. This thing is nearly seven foot long, it's bigger than I am. And that rostrum on there, that's a foot and a half long, it's got 39 of those teeth, each one is about an inch long, wickedly sharp. You've got a huge dorsal fin, a very big second dorsal fin, a very big tail, and they anchor the body, and when the body flexes, it's this head and this rostrum that really scythe from side to side. It's about to tense, we're about to have a splash. Yeah, here we go. This journey began almost 20 years ago. In the heart of the Amazon, I stood staring at a vicious looking weapon and wondered if I'd ever see its owner in the flesh. Now, in a remote river in Australia, I've finally got my hands on a live sawfish. The scientists, meanwhile, think they've figured out why these creatures come into fresh water. It's flat on the rostrum. Dave's latest measurements show that they're using the Fitzroy as a nursery. Acoustic tag going in here. Despite all the predators, it's still safer here than in the sea. Only when they reach eight or nine feet long do sawfish leave the river. As an adult living in salt water, this fish could one day become a 20-foot giant. But I came here to find out if this fish is also a monster in terms of deed. Now, there's no doubt that that fearsome toothed rostrum is potentially a lethal weapon, and it's certainly been used as such in the hands of humans, but I can find just no instance at all of this fish having attacked a human being willfully. In other words, its monstrous appearance is not matched by its behaviour. Certainly, if you're a small fish, this thing is a deadly weapon. But from the human point of view, the sawfish is the archetypal gentle giant. I'm in Brazil on the Araguaia River trying to catch my first electric eel, the prime suspect for killing three cowboys. There's something on the end of my line and it's putting up a powerful fight. I don't think this is an electric eel. It's too strong. The back four fifths of an electric eel's body is mostly used to produce electricity. It doesn't have the muscle to put up a struggle like this. Oh yeah, see those bubbles coming up? That's a big red-tailed catfish, big red-tailed catfish. Out of the water, it gulps in air, blowing it out through its eel flaps. Very strong fish, but it tends to not have the stamina. But I mean, another thing to remark about this fish, it's about a third of the body is head, huge head. Look at this. This river is just full of predators. There's a big chunk of fin missing there. I get the fish back in the water so it can recover before I let it go. This proves my point, what I was saying earlier on, you throw a bit of dead fish in this river and there's anything that could take it. It could be an electric eel, that's what I was hoping for, but it could just as likely be one of these red-tailed catfish. That was a great catch, but unfortunately it's not the fish I'm after. I've travelled the world tracking down river monsters in some of the most dangerous waters imaginable. But my journey to catch a deadly electric eel ends at a mud hole in the middle of cattle pasture. It's the last place on earth I'd expect to find an elusive, lethal fish. I'm just making a bit of a trench. From my point of view, it'll be easier to handle if there's some kind of sort of notch that it's in rather than it's being able to slip and slide all over the place. My normal capture method would be useless in water this shallow, so out goes the rod and in comes a lasso, fitting for cowboy country. Because electric eels don't rely on physical strength, pulling it out of the water shouldn't be that hard. But not getting shocked will be, so protective clothing is essential. We've got a plan. The plan is not so much to sort of go after the head with the noose, but to position that and then get it to go through the noose. Just taking a few deep breaths because one slip and, you know, it could be very nasty indeed, need to be so focused and so careful about this. An eel this size can deliver a shock of 650 volts. That's enough to stop my heart in seconds. First go. Amazing. First go. Electric eels can keep on shocking out of water, but the rubber gloves we're wearing protect us from this. Look at the colours on this thing. I've got to give it a clean. That is, it's doing a sort of, it looks like a muscle contraction, spasm almost. That's when it's actually shocking. Because electric eels get most of their oxygen from breathing air, they can stay out of water for long periods of time. That's five foot ten and a half. That's pretty much exactly the same as me. This is exactly the same size as the eel that killed Francisco, the 21-year-old man who died in a tiny pond near Villanova. If I wasn't wearing these rubber gloves, I could be dead too. It's over 100 degrees and I don't want the fish to overheat, so time it went back in the water. The pond may be shallow at the moment, but the rains are not far behind me. The waters will soon rise, giving this eel the freedom to roam once again. My search led me to this tiny drying out puddle. I mean, the water in there is barely six inches deep. It's the last place you'd expect to find a river monster, but that's where it was. There's more, there's more, there's more. It's not just this big one, again, it looks like wood, but it started moving. We were watching it and it looks like there's actually several, but smaller, right in with these roots here. I've just never seen anything like this before. It's like a tangle of bodies. I'm just trying to count the heads. The more I look, the more I see. I was thinking 10 or a dozen. I think there could be 20 down here. This is an incredible discovery and answers the final question about how the cowboys died. I'm hunting for a creature behind the myth of a child-killing monster, the kappa. It's a creature known locally as the hanzaki, and I think I'm just about to come face to face with it. I have caught a hanzaki, better known as the giant Japanese salamander, one of the largest salamanders in the world, and the creature that I believe is behind the kappa legend. They get bigger than this, but wow, this creature is aggressive, even though we mean it no harm. The good thing is that these guys, unlike fish, are just as at home on land as they are in the water. Pretty soon, he calms down. That is a hanzaki noodled, and I'm very pleased, even with my gloves on, my hands stayed away from that mouth. He wasn't too amused by the fact that he was just pulled out of his hole like that, but this, I think, is the creature I've been after. Looks a bit like a fish, but it's got hands, and that's exactly what this has got. Mr. Toshimoto is monitoring the health of the hanzaki population along this river. It's nearly 10 pounds. Measuring, weighing, and micro-tagging every one of his catches, counting all the digits, all normal, so that when he recaptures them, he can build up a clear picture of how this incredibly rare animal is faring in the wild. Best part of a yard long. And now, we have collected a new one for his study. This is an animal that hasn't been caught before, it doesn't have a chip in it, so that's a really good capture. Normally, I wouldn't be allowed to touch this, but the fact that I'm acting as Mr. Toshimoto's assistant means that I'm able to work with this animal. There are only a few pockets of these endangered giant salamanders left in the wild, these creatures that haven't changed since the age of the dinosaurs. Their survival is an important part of Japan's natural heritage. And when I try to release it, this national treasure still makes one last attempt to bite me, before disappearing, unfazed by his capture. As darkness falls, my goal is simple. I want to catch an even larger one, one that is big enough to potentially pull a child underwater. I struggle to avoid getting bitten by the last one. I wonder how I will tackle a giant at night. And since these salamanders are reputed to grow to nearly six feet long, I'm not even sure I want to. Giant Japanese salamanders are under threat from an unusual source, their closest living relatives. Introduced Chinese salamanders have started breeding with the native Japanese giants, creating hybrids. When any Chinese or hybrid salamanders are found, they have to be removed from the river. Mr. Toshimoto keeps a collection of them back at the institute. Right, take a look at this. This was caught from a river just a few miles from here, but this one's a hybrid, so this doesn't get put back in the river. And this is why I can have a good look at it. This guy is nearly four foot long, and when they get this big with no natural predators, they're fearless. Now those descriptions I heard of the kappa, it sounded just like this composite animal, a mixture of different bits of different animals. And I mean, what is there that is like that? Well, I think this is it, the giant salamander. You've got the flat head, the wide mouth, long muscular body, complete with this powerful tail. And then last but not least, you've got these limbs. It's just like a fish with limbs. Now, if you saw one of these down in your local stream, I can fully understand you not wanting your child to go swimming there. Unlike most river monsters I encounter, which like deep, dark water, these salamanders live in small, crystal clear rivers, the kind of streams you would let your children play in. And watching them catch a fish, you can see how the idea came about that the kappa kills its victim by sucking out its soul. These voracious predators literally vacuum up their food. And if it doesn't kill you in its jaws, then a more sinister fate awaits you, imprisoned alive in its stomach while you slowly dissolve. I have to meet the victim in the story, the man who was attacked by this mystery fish. I've arranged to meet him where the attack happened, at the dam two hours out of the capital, Caramaribo. The dam was built on the Suriname River and completed in 1964, creating one of the largest man-made lakes in the world called Brokopondo, on the banks of which I meet Maurice Gans, a local man of Dutch descent. What was your job on the dam at the time? We were asked to dive to see the erosion in the downstream for big holes underneath. We pour in cement in big, large bags. So we go underneath there, start up the engine on top. The water becomes like mist. We cannot see anymore. Suddenly I saw something blinking. So I grab my knife and then he hits me. So fast. I blew out my hand. I don't know if the knife hits him. Then I start feeling and seeing the blood flowing. I realized I was bitten very deep. This was definitely not a piranha attack. They rush in snatching quick, savage bites. They don't cling onto their victims like a dog with a bone. Maurice's mutilated hand needed over a hundred stitches. And even though it was 20 years ago, he still very much bears the scars. This is the scar here? Yes, this is the scar from here to here. Over this small finger, cut here. And those are the tooths from the top. It's hard to believe there's a freshwater fish that would launch a solo attack on a diver. Did you know what fish it was? It's an anumara. Anumara, also known as the wolffish, so called for its wolf-like teeth. These fish can grow to nearly four and a half feet and weigh 80 pounds. They are serious predators. But I had until now never heard of one ever attacking a person. I wonder if Maurice ever had any other kind of close encounter while he was diving. The only thing that we saw close behind us were piranhas. Did that make you slightly nervous? Not really, not really. But every time you do like this or you make a sudden move, they disappear. They never came and took a nip out of any... No, no, no, no, no. So Maurice often saw piranhas, but they never ever came close. Unlike this lone wolf. This fish attacked, and if Maurice hadn't had his knife, who knows what could have happened. Could it be that the wolffish is more dangerous than the more notorious South American horror, the piranha? To find out, I need to confront one myself. I have been hunting for the wolffish and it seems that everything has been trying to stop me. But now in the pitch dark, I have finally made contact with the fish that I believe is South America's real river monster. It's a wolffish. Very strong, very strong. The monster I've spent the past three weeks trying to catch. Here we go. And it's a big one. Oh, there she comes. But fantastic. Here we go. That's a result. That's a result. That's lovely. So here we are. This is the wolffish. And the stories I've heard about these, absolutely fearless. Anything comes near them, dogs, people, they'll go for it. So it looks like it looks quite gap-toothed, but actually pull those lips back and you see they're very spiky fangs underneath there. The other thing about it is the fishing is just unlike anything I've done before. It's real guerrilla, close quarters, hand-to-hand combat almost.