Yes, sea monsters exist, and there’s no need to seek out an unknown creature or Mesozoic surviving plesiosaur: a simple sturgeon may be enough to convince the skeptics. Especially when the sturgeon in question reaches the size of the sturgeon caught and then released by two Canadian fishermen in British Columbia’s Fraser River: that is, 3.3 meters and weighing more than 270 kilos. “After jumping out of the water twice during the fight, we looked at each other in disbelief at its gargantuan size,” fishing guide Yves Bisson told USA Today. “We knew immediately that we had encountered a very special fish.”

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Dan Lallier, his less experienced partner in this adventure, admits to going through a whole range of emotions: “I was surprised, shocked, excited, amazed and scared.” Sturgeons can reach a canonical age and their growth continues throughout their lives, which explains the disproportionate sizes of certain specimens. The one captured by Yves Bisson and Dan Lallier is at least a century old. And his career as a river monster is far from over: since the species is protected, the two companions released him after measuring, filming and photographing him, operations that left the giant as calm and harmless as “a goldfish”. stayed. “It is quite normal behavior for sturgeons to be immobile and docile after release in shallow water,” says Yves Bisson. And the fisherman is convinced that he will live another hundred long years… It is up to the next generations of fishermen to discover his greatness in 2122.