Don't release your exotic animals out into the wild
 

Just a reminder:

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/...EWS02/60808031

David Stepp was fishing for catfish with friends on the Ohio River Monday
night when he reeled in a bizarre catch - an octopus.

It was dead, but only recently.

Recognizing that nobody would ever believe he had actually caught the
creature, the 20-year-old Jeffersonville man loaded it into the trunk of
his car and showed it minutes later to a Clarksville police officer and
Bill Putt, a park ranger at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

Putt snapped photos, and Stepp and his surprised companions posed with the
purplish-brown animal, which measured six feet from the tip of one tentacle
to the other.

It was three and half feet tall when dangled like mop above the ground.

"It was really pretty big," said Putt, who later deposited the octopus in a
park freezer, figuring a marine biologist might want to examine it.

Although he's seen more than his share of exotic animals turn up at the
Southern Indiana park across from downtown Louisville, Putt said he was
extremely skeptical when a fellow angler said that someone had caught an
octopus below the dam.

"I thought, 'This guy's got to be drunk,' " Putt said. But "we looked at it
and that's what it was."

The octopus might take the prize for weird discoveries at the falls, where
park crews and visitors have found crocodiles and piranha-like tropical
fish over the years - animals probably kept as pets and released by owners
into the river and onto river banks.

Octopods are highly intelligent as invertebrates go, according to an
article on the National Wildlife Foundation's Web site.

They are sometimes kept as pets and surprise their owners by escaping from
seemingly secure tanks "due to their intelligence and problem-solving
skills," the entry said.

Because they live in salt water oceans, they don't survive long in fresh
water such as the Ohio River, Putt said.

It's not illegal to own the animals, but releasing it into the wild is,
said Mark Farmer, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Natural
Resources.

"Who's to say somebody didn't toss it into the river?" Farmer said. "I
found out a long time ago, you never know what's going to turn up."

Don't release your exotic animals out into the wild
 

"George" wrote in message ...
David Stepp was fishing for catfish with friends on the Ohio River Monday
night when he reeled in a bizarre catch - an octopus.

It was dead, but only recently.

I would say it was a prank joke - it is hard to believe
an octopus would survive in fresh water any time...
And they decompose pretty quickly. He got one from the
oriental sea-food market and play a joke on his friends :-)

Don't release your exotic animals out into the wild
 

"Pszemol" wrote in message
...
"George" wrote in message
...
David Stepp was fishing for catfish with friends on the Ohio River
Monday night when he reeled in a bizarre catch - an octopus.

It was dead, but only recently.

I would say it was a prank joke - it is hard to believe
an octopus would survive in fresh water any time...
And they decompose pretty quickly. He got one from the
oriental sea-food market and play a joke on his friends :-)

Umm, I find that explanation a little hard to believe. Do you know where
one can buy a six feet diameter dead octopus in Clarksville, Indiana?

George

Don't release your exotic animals out into the wild
 

"George" wrote in message ...
Umm, I find that explanation a little hard to believe. Do you know where
one can buy a six feet diameter dead octopus in Clarksville, Indiana?

Six feet diameter means that each tentacle was about 3 feet long.
This is not very big octopus. Rather average one...
I can tell you where one can buy such thing in Chicago!
There is no reason this man could not buy one in any big city
seafood market and drive with it in his truck keeping it on ice.

And what surprises me most is that for you, buying an octopus
on a seafood market is for you less probable than such invertebrate
living in freshwater...
If I see him catching this animal live in the river - that
would be a different story :-) But dead? No... it was IMHO a prank.

Don't release your exotic animals out into the wild
 

"Pszemol" wrote in message
...
"George" wrote in message
...
Umm, I find that explanation a little hard to believe. Do you know
where one can buy a six feet diameter dead octopus in Clarksville,
Indiana?

Six feet diameter means that each tentacle was about 3 feet long.
This is not very big octopus. Rather average one...
I can tell you where one can buy such thing in Chicago!
There is no reason this man could not buy one in any big city
seafood market and drive with it in his truck keeping it on ice.

And what surprises me most is that for you, buying an octopus
on a seafood market is for you less probable than such invertebrate
living in freshwater...
If I see him catching this animal live in the river - that
would be a different story :-) But dead? No... it was IMHO a prank.

Looks like you were right after all - good call:

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/...WS01/608110345

An octopus hooked in the Ohio River by a fisherman had been put there by a
film student who bought it at a seafood store and videotaped the creature.

Zachary Treitz, 21, of Crescent Hill in Louisville, said he bought the
octopus -- dead and frozen -- for $26 and put it in the river after
shooting the video Sunday for a film project.

________________________

By the way, I never said that it was living in fresh water. I never made
any claim at all as to how it got there. I just didn't know that one could
get such a large octopus this far inland in an area where not a lot of
people eat the things. As to catching it, fishermen in that area often
troll for fish, so they snag all kinds of things on a regular basis. It's
just that this is the first time anyone has heard of anyone snagging an
octopus, I guess. Anyway, I'm glad that's settled. I need a break!

George

Don't release your exotic animals out into the wild
 

My brother came down for a visit and we went fishing off the beach and
there were several
small 3ft sharks running that night. He took one home to Ohio (Pomeroy).
There was some construction
going on at the boat launch in the center of town. He put it by the work
area a few feet from the water line.
But never heard anything from it. LOLOLOL

A friend of mine and myself were spearfishing off the pier on Pensacola
Beach and there
was a 10ft hammerhead lying off the pier on the bottom...... dead. We
got the idea to spear it and carry it
on our shoulders through the crowd on the beach upon leaving the water.
Needless to say people freaked out,
and thought we were fearless super aquamen. LOLOL I owned the Bumper
Boats on the island at the time
and hung it up there. A tourist from Alabama was there with his family
and asked what am I gonna do with it,
Soooooo I gave it to him and he strapped it on the top of his van and
headed back to Alabama..... Betcha
after the first couple hours that baby smelled really nice when gassing
up at the stations and rest stops. LOLOLOL

George wrote:

Just a reminder:

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/...EWS02/60808031

David Stepp was fishing for catfish with friends on the Ohio River Monday
night when he reeled in a bizarre catch - an octopus.

It was dead, but only recently.

Recognizing that nobody would ever believe he had actually caught the
creature, the 20-year-old Jeffersonville man loaded it into the trunk of
his car and showed it minutes later to a Clarksville police officer and
Bill Putt, a park ranger at the Falls of the Ohio State Park.

Putt snapped photos, and Stepp and his surprised companions posed with the
purplish-brown animal, which measured six feet from the tip of one tentacle
to the other.

It was three and half feet tall when dangled like mop above the ground.

"It was really pretty big," said Putt, who later deposited the octopus in a
park freezer, figuring a marine biologist might want to examine it.

Although he's seen more than his share of exotic animals turn up at the
Southern Indiana park across from downtown Louisville, Putt said he was
extremely skeptical when a fellow angler said that someone had caught an
octopus below the dam.

"I thought, 'This guy's got to be drunk,' " Putt said. But "we looked at it
and that's what it was."

The octopus might take the prize for weird discoveries at the falls, where
park crews and visitors have found crocodiles and piranha-like tropical
fish over the years - animals probably kept as pets and released by owners
into the river and onto river banks.

Octopods are highly intelligent as invertebrates go, according to an
article on the National Wildlife Foundation's Web site.

They are sometimes kept as pets and surprise their owners by escaping from
seemingly secure tanks "due to their intelligence and problem-solving
skills," the entry said.

Because they live in salt water oceans, they don't survive long in fresh
water such as the Ohio River, Putt said.

It's not illegal to own the animals, but releasing it into the wild is,
said Mark Farmer, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Natural
Resources.

"Who's to say somebody didn't toss it into the river?" Farmer said. "I
found out a long time ago, you never know what's going to turn up."





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