LEVIATHANS OF THE DEEP

Alone on an outrigger canoe in the middle of the Senanayake Samudra, Sri Lanka’s largest reservoir, I was transfixed by a strange sight. About two miles from the closest land there was what appeared to be a crow treading water! As I watched, it took off every now and then to a height of a few feet before landing back on precisely the same spot. I decided that there had to be something solid like a floating log the bird was alighting on. But on approaching the spot I found it to be the carcase of a giant catfish. It was about 8 feet in length. The massive body was deeply scarred indicative of an attack by a crocodile. The crow had been feeding on this carcase tearing off chunks then flying up whenever the floating dinner dipped gently below the surface.

It was my first sight of a giant catfish and, up to then, didn’t know they existed in this reservoir. Weeks later I was to see another - also dead and bearing scars that told of an attack by a large predator like a crocodile.

Back in the 1960s I was working as technical assistant to a team of wildlife researchers from the Smithsonian Institution, USA.  Based in Inginiyagala, my work took me to almost every nook and cranny of the huge national park that bordered the Senanyake Samudra. The park was the newest in the country and was not developed. The only road into the park was a dirt track that only went about half a mile then petered out into thick jungle. All the fieldwork here had to be done on foot and so I had many exciting and a few hair-raising encounters with wild animals.

In the initial stages of the research project we had to hire an outrigger canoe from fishermen to get across large stretches of water. Often I was left to do the fieldwork by myself and it was on one such occasion that I came upon the crow feasting on a floating catfish. A few months later the project acquired a small boat and outboard motor.

One day, while walking with a researcher along the bank of the reservoir, we rounded a bend and were startled by a scuffling sound in the bushes. Looking up we saw two mongooses rush out of a huge hole in the carcase of a giant catfish. We could see that this monster was the victim of a clash with a crocodile and had been washed up on the shore some days earlier. This fish was not as large as the one I saw floating on the water; only about 6 foot long but large enough for the mongooses to creep inside its body and feast on its innards! The stench of the rotting fish was overpowering and the flies were swarming in their millions! So after my companion had taken some photographs, having laid his binoculars close to the carcase for size comparison, we beat a hasty retreat!

In future posts I shall write more about the Senayake Samudra, the Galoya National Park and my experiences in Inginiyagala.