Piranha caught in Folkestone park pond

When your chosen fishing spot is a pond inside a park in central Folkestone, it's fair to say you're not expecting to catch anything too exotic. Hence Derek Plum's shock when, after a 15-minute struggle, he reeled in a piranha. The 46-year-old caught the half-kilo carnivorous predator at Radnor Park pond in the Kent town, some way from its normal South American habitat.

"I felt an almighty tug on my rod – next thing I knew it had dragged my line about 500 yards. It was going all over the place," Plum said. "Luckily, the fishing hook had fallen out of its mouth otherwise I would had somehow had to remove it myself."



The Environment Agency said the fish had probably been kept as a domestic pet, but was released when it became too big for its tank. Ben Weir, a fishery scientist of Angler's Mail magazine, said today: "I used to keep them and they would sharpen their teeth on the glass of the tank, so I know one when I see one.

"It's probably become too big for its tank but it's extremely irresponsible to release it like this. They are a top-end predator. I'm extremely shocked that this has happened." The fish was identified as a red-bellied piranha, whose diet consists mainly of fish, insects and worms. The chairman of the local angling club said a member had seen someone emptying a container into the pond the week before the piranha was caught.

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