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Catching fish, trapping rats by electrocution prevalent in southern Vietnam

Catching fish, trapping rats by electrocution prevalent in southern Vietnam

Wednesday, August 13, 2014, 21:02 GMT+7

Catching fish and trapping rats by electrocution has become prevalent in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam even though it causes more and more accidental deaths and damage to the surrounding environment.

Not only for meat, but farmers also trap rats for protecting their crops from being damaged by the rodents. They install wires around their rice fields at night to prevent the rodents from entering, especially during harvest seasons.

Normally, hunters backpack with mobile batteries to generate electricity via a transformer. The electricity current is installed along two poles, each around 2-3 meters, which include a positive electrode (anode) and a negative electrode (cathode). A breaker is installed on the anode current and the electricity current can only pulse when a hunter presses on the breaker.

At the end of the pole is a basket made of metal wires to conduct electricity. The two baskets are dipped under water to stun fish and are then retrieved out of the water.

However, it not only stuns the fish, but can also stun the hunter if he slips and falls into the water.

Alarm

A transformer to create diverted electricity from a battery can be made by any electrician and the product has been displayed for sale in markets at the price of less than a million dong (VND1 million = US$48).

By law, electrofishing is illegal and thus selling the transformer is also banned. Yet, it is widespread now.

A hunter explained how he catches fish by electrocution, “While walking under water, you should press the breaker and extend your hands forward to avoid being electrocuted.

“In case you lose your step, loosen the breaker. Otherwise, you may hold tightly the breaker as a reaction while falling and be electrocuted.

“It is risky but the advantage is that you can catch fish of all sizes fast and conveniently.”

Unfortunately this convenience is the reason that more and more accidental deaths have taken place in the Mekong Delta by electrocution resulting from the hazardous and illegal means of hunting.

On the morning of July 29, locals in Cai Dau Town of Chau Phu District in An Giang Province discovered the body of a man lying in mud by a river bank. The body was still wearing a battery and two poles.

“The man was mistakenly stepping into the electricity field created by his poles and was electrocuted,” according to a report read by the district police department.

Another case on June 29 involved a couple in Vinh Loc Commune of An Phu District in the same province who were also found lying dead in a curled up position by the water’s edge of a canal with electrofishing equipment on their bodies.

Local police verified that a worn-out wire of the electrofishing equipment dipped under water and electrocuted the couple.

Many other deaths were caused by trapping rats on rice fields with electricity currents.

To prevent the rodent from destroying their rice, many farmers install electricity wires around their fields and the trap kills both hunters and passers-by, especially at night.

Electric traps are prevalent in rice fields in Mekong Delta provinces such as Hau Giang, Dong Thap, and An Giang.

Not only installing electric traps from electricity grids, farmers also invent mobile electric traps by using batteries and a transformer to create diverted electricity.

Punishment failure

Local authorities and police have strictly traced down the use of electricity to catch fish and rats but failed to stop the banned mode.

On August 1, the People’s Court of Dong Thap Province sentenced Nguyen The Trung, 29, to five years in jail and Nguyen Huu Tri, 51, to two-year imprisonment for manslaughter. The two men illegally laid an electric trap to catch fish, causing a passer-by to be electrocuted to death.

Similar sentences have been handed out in other provinces for the same crime.

Besides causing accidental deaths, catching fish and rats by electrocution can also badly influence biology and the environment because it kills animals of all sizes, including eggs.

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