This sure isn’t science and it’s barely an environmental story. But without a KSJ Tracker post, you’d likely never see this odd report unless you live near Chicago (and it’s not the only one). A man fishing for catfish in the Des Plaines River in Illinois, report the Trib’s James Janega, pulled in a red-bellied fish the size of a dinner plate. A passerby guessed piranha. State wildlife officials say sure, that happens sometimes. It’s probably from the aquarium of somebody who decided to let it go free. Apparently, they may survive for a while but don’t breed in Illinois Rivers. The weird thing is, Google News reveals a steady drip, drip, drip of piranha landings here, there, almost everywhere. Links to a few samples are below. Let’s hope they don’t set up housekeeping in Florida or some other place the water is more Amazon-like.

Read it;

Piranha News from All Over: AP 6/27 in N. Dakota; AP 6/20 Almost ditto in Dollar Bay, Minnesota; Daily Record (UK) says they’re biting in Siberia; WFIE Indiana 6/05 says they’re in Boonvile City Lake (with the boy who caught one in the pic above);

Late Addition: In Utah 7/10 AP;

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 5th, 2006 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Environment & Energy Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.