Tuoi Tre News
13 August 2014
Catching fish and trapping rats by electrocution has become prevalent in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam even though it causes more and more accidental deaths and damage to the surrounding environment.
Not only for meat, but farmers also trap rats for protecting their crops from being damaged by the rodents. They install wires around their rice fields at night to prevent the rodents from entering, especially during harvest seasons.
Normally, hunters backpack with mobile batteries to generate electricity via a transformer. The electricity current is installed along two poles, each around 2-3 meters, which include a positive electrode (anode) and a negative electrode (cathode). A breaker is installed on the anode current and the electricity current can only pulse when a hunter presses on the breaker.
At the end of the pole is a basket made of metal wires to conduct electricity. The two baskets are dipped under water to stun fish and are then retrieved out of the water.
However, it not only stuns the fish, but can also stun the hunter if he slips and falls into the water.