(NewsNation) — Looking like a creature that should be swimming around in the background in a “Jurassic Park” movie, the armored sturgeon is like no other freshwater fish. A true dinosaur, it can grow to epic size and live much longer than most other aquatic creatures.
In a TikTok video that’s been viewed more than 33 million times, fisherman Yves Bisson, who specializes in catching sturgeon, showed off his catch of the 10 1/2-foot, 500- to 600-pound sturgeon on March 6 in the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada. Bisson said this is the biggest fish he’s ever seen before.
Sturgeon typically grow to be 7 to 12 feet long, and feed on shellfish, crustaceans and smaller fish. They’re not speedy predators, relying instead on stealth and ambush.
There are 27 species of sturgeon worldwide, and more than half are considered critically endangered. Some species date back to more than 200 million years ago, but it’s only been in the last few centuries that a land creature, man, has developed a taste for the fish’s eggs, which are served as the highly coveted foodstuff known as caviar.
Large, armored and slow-moving, sturgeon are easy prey for fishermen, and unchecked harvesting until not very long ago led to their critically endangered state. Bisson tagged and released his massive catch in hopes that it might live another century or so.