A senior researcher from the National Academy of Science of The
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said the "Tianchi
monster" a Chinese photographer caught on film last month is
probably the mutated offspring of trout stocked by the North Korea
40 years ago.
77-year-old Kim Li-tae said during an interview with the
Choson Shinbo, a newspaper published by the General
Association of Korean Residents in Japan, that he was one of the
North Korean researchers who released?nine trout into Tianchi
Lake, located on Changbai Mountain, on July 30, 1960. At a later
date they released other species of fish such as carp and mosquito
fish into the lake.
Generally fish cannot survive in a lake created by volcanic
activity, but the Korean researchers have proven through
experiments that fish can be transplanted live into the lake. Fish
stocked by the researchers could survive by eating insects and
other creatures blown to the lake by strong winds. The fish mutate
during growth and form new varieties, so the trout they stocked
might now be called "Tianchi trout," Kim said.
In 2000, the Korean researchers did experimental tests on
"Tianchi trout" found in shoal waters that measured 85 centimeters
in length and weighed 7.7 kilos, but they've never been able to
test trout from the deeper waters of Tianchi Lake. The "Tianchi
monster" that Chinese photographer Zhuo Yongsheng, who works for a
local TV station run by the administration office of the nature
reserve at Mount Changbaishan, Jilin Province captured on film last
month, might be a "Tianchi trout" from the deep of the lake, Kim
said.
Tianchi Lake is China's biggest and deepest volcanic lake, with
an area of 9.8 square kilometers, and water surface 2,198 meters
above sea level. The average water depth of the lake is 204 meters
and the deepest spot is 373 meters.
Earliest record of "monsters" date back over 150 years, but in
the past decade the "monster" only appears in the summer.
(China.org.cn by Star Cheung, November 15, 2007)
