An 8-year-old boy went fishing for bass and catfish in Pennsylvania over the weekend and instead hauled in something that belongs roughly 4,000 miles farther south.
A piranha.
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Seamus Coffey was fishing with his dad, Michael, at Ridley Park Lake on Saturday when something grabbed his line. At first, Seamus figured he had hooked a bass.
“I’m reeling it in, and I think there’s a bass,” Seamus told 6ABC Philadelphia.
His dad could tell pretty quickly, though, that this was not one of their usual catches.
“I was like, ‘Slow down dude, you might lose it.’ This looks like something we haven’t caught before,” Michael recalled.
Once the fish hit dry land, Dad was still trying to figure out what exactly they were looking at.
Seamus, meanwhile, apparently needed about three seconds.
“He said, ‘It’s a piranha!'” Michael said.
How did he know that?
“Because I watch YouTube!” Seamus said.
Michael pulled up photos on Google and came to the same conclusion, and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission later confirmed that the roughly 9.5-inch, 2-pound fish was indeed some species of piranha.
Piranhas are native to South America, not suburban Philadelphia, so state officials have a pretty good idea how this one arrived at Ridley Park Lake: Somebody likely dumped a pet they no longer wanted.
Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission spokesperson Mike Parker said exotic animals can seem like a great idea when they’re small, only for owners to eventually realize that housing, feeding and caring for them can become expensive and difficult.
Dumping them into a nearby lake, however, is not the solution.
“That is probably the worst thing you can do for an animal that’s been a pet,” Parker said.
It’s also illegal. Pennsylvania prohibits releasing exotic species into the wild, and violators can face fines or prosecution.
Michael said he initially returned the fish to the water before reconsidering and ultimately disposed of it humanely. Parker said removing it was the right call because a non-native fish could pose a risk to people and disrupt the local ecosystem.
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Parker said this particular fish likely wouldn’t have survived long outside its natural habitat anyway, especially after presumably spending its life as a pet.
And, bizarrely enough, Pennsylvania has been through this before.
In July 2016, a woman and her son hooked a red-bellied piranha at North Park Lake near Pittsburgh. That fish managed to flip back into the water after the anglers removed the hook. Officials at the time also suspected someone had released an unwanted aquarium fish and said Pennsylvania’s cold weather would eventually take care of the problem.
Ten years later, another Pennsylvania kid has a piranha story of his own.
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And despite unexpectedly finding a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth on the end of his line, Seamus doesn’t appear traumatized in the slightest.
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“Fishing is my favorite thing,” he said.
After Saturday, though, it’s going to be pretty tough for the next bluegill to impress him.
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