A party of 14 visitors on a Discover Loch Ness guided tourdiscovered more than they bargained for when they found the bodies oftwo giant snake-like creatures on the shores of the loch.
Experts rushed to the loch, eager to see if the legend couldfinally be explained, only to discover that the ‘monsters’ were infact conger eels.
The eels were lying on the shingle and bigger of the two wasalmost 7ft long, had a girth of 21 inches and weighed 46lb.
Yet it was still a mystery as to how the eels had found there wayto the banks of Loch ness and revived the theory that there is anunderground tunnel between the sea and the loch.
On seeing the bodies of the eels naturalist Adrian Shine, whoworks in the laboratory of the scientific Loch Ness Project, sited atthe Loch Ness 2000 Exhibition Centre at Drumnadrochit, said: “Iimmediately realised that these were conger eels, a saltwater speciesthat have never been found alive in Loch Ness.
“There are one or two possibilities, although I think that thefish were caught and killed by man and brought to the loch by thesame means.
“The first possibility is that the were thrown off a trawlerpassing through from the sea fishing grounds. But they were foundless than 10ft apart, which would be unusual if they were thrown overthe side.
“In any case, I think that they would have sunk and trawlers don’tusually catch conger eels as they usually inhabit rocky, deep placesoff the coast where fishing boats don’t operate. In Scotland, congereels are usually caught by sea anglers.”
Mr Shine added: “It is quite possible that an angler brought thecreatures there for a prank, knowing about the heightened interest inLoch Ness just now.
“Mr Sundberg (Swedish Nessie-hunter Jan Sundberg, who has set agiant trap for the monster on the bed of Ness) has been talking ofthe monster being a large eel-like creature, so there could be somekind of connection there. It could have put the idea in someone’shead.”
More here: North Scotland Press and Journal
