Conserving Arowanas Needs More Than Releasing Fish

Picture: William West / AFP

In an analytical piece by Macaranga, YH Law, Tracy Keeling and SL Wong explore the origin and stories of Asian arowanas in Malaysia, from common food fish to expensive pet fish.

The Asian arowana is a freshwater fish. It lives in lakes, rivers, and swamps from Cambodia to Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Sarawak, and Kalimantan. A top predator, the fish embodies speed and strength. It scans the depths and above with enormous eyes and a pair of bristles (called barbels) on the tip of its tapered mouth. Armed with hard scales with highlighted rims and a powerful trio of fins at the end of a long straight back, adult arowanas have little to fear. When provoked, it leaps out of the water. 

In the wild, however, the Asian arowana is endangered and rarely seen. Lake Bukit Merah, 3,600 ha in size, was once a haven of the much sought-after golden Asian arowana. Yet nobody has caught a wild arowana there for nearly 20 years. Zealous collectors for the aquarium trade from the 1960s to 1980s have largely emptied the lake and surrounding rivers of wild arowanas. Wild populations elsewhere suffered the same fate too.

But efforts are underway to make a happy conservation story out of the Asian arowana.