Chasing the $150,000 fish
People love having exotic fish in their aquariums. They’ll pay big money for them, even when it’s illegal. And it turns out that some people will kill for the right fish.
Author Emily Voigt descended into this crazy underworld for her new book, The Dragon Behind the Glass: A True Story of Power, Obsession and the World’s Most Coveted Fish, which tells the tale of what is perhaps the world’s most sought-after aquarium fish: the Asian arowana.
Just how sought-after? One Asian aro- wana can fetch $150,000 or more. People have committed murder for them.
As you might guess, you can’t find one at your local pet store — or at least you shouldn’t be able to.
“The fish is banned in the United States,” Voigt says. “It is an endangered species. It’s protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act. So you can’t legally bring them into the United States as a pet. So if you find one, it might be a problem.”
The Asian arowana is no ordinary pet fish. It grows to about a metre.
Collectors believe it brings prosperity and its popularity has nearly fished it out of its habitat. But it’s still being farmed in Southeast Asia — under tight security.
“That’s where the fish is raised, on farms that are likened to high-security prisons,” Voigt says. “They have high con- crete walls and barbed wire and Rottweilers prowling around the perimeters at night.”
What’s fascinating is that decades ago, people ate the Asian arowana for dinner. So what changed?
Voigt cites several factors: overharvesting for the food trade, habitat destruction and the fish being a slow reproducer. The Asian arowana also became a hot target for fish collectors when it appeared in the UN-administered Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna in 1975. Its protected status made some people wanted to own it.
“There’s a desire to own a little piece of the wild,” Voigt says.