A 100 posto reader certainly thinks so – and experts agree that it’s possible.
100 posto published an article about a giant catfish in the Sava on September 11, 2017, with one of the readers claiming that it ate her dog six years ago.
She was walking her French Bulldog with her husband six years ago and the dog was running in the shallow part of the river. When they reached Hendrix Bridge, something dragged the dog into the water, the husband jumped after it, but it was gone.
When they got home, they concluded it had to be a giant catfish because they often feed on small animals.
Nobody believed the story until she managed to take a photo a few days ago.
Daniel Vignjević, who is a fish expert, agrees that situations like these are possible.
“It’s hard to tell based on the photo alone, but it looks like it is a huge catfish, at least two metres long, weighing over 100 kg,” he said for 100 posto, adding that it is not impossible for a specimen that is this big to eat a smaller animal, such as the reader’s French Bulldog. He says that he mostly saw big catfish like this near Toplana, but it’s not unusual for them to travel to shallow waters and approach the riverbank looking for food.
“Catfish are at the top of the food chain and they’re really not picky when it comes to food, they attack everything that’s nearby, often ducks, pigeons, even rats and other smaller animals. French Bulldogs are relatively small, so I would not rule out the possibility that the catfish dragged it into the river,” Mr Vignjević explains.
Big catfish are not uncommon – take a look at Mr Vignjević’s video of a 205-centimetre catfish caught by a fisherman, also in Sava, below:
Translated from 100 posto.
