A boat transports Pirarucu fish to a processing ship, in the San Raimundo settlement lake, in Carauari, Brazil, Tuesday, September 6, 2022, published November 3. The giant fish not so long ago nearly vanished. The illegal and unsustainable fishing left river and Indigenous communities struggling to catch their staple food. (Photo by Jorge Saenz/AP Photo)

Fish are thrown onto a truck during a winter fishing festival held on the frozen Wulungu Lake in Fuhai county, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, January 18, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

A Palestinian fisherman cleans up his fishing net after the Israeli decision to close Gaza's fishing zone, on the beach in Gaza City, Tuesday, August 18, 2020. (Photo by Khalil Hamra/AP Photo)

A woman spreads out fish to dry at Ngapali Beach near a fishing village in Myanmar's western Rakhine State, Saturday, December 31, 2022. (Photo by Aung Shine Oo/AP Photo)

A girl and boy carry a basket of fish in Kyaukpyu township, Rakhine state, Myanmar October 6, 2015. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

A dead fish lies on the bank of Oder River on the German-Polish border, in Brieskow-Finkenheerd, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, August 11, 2022. Authorities are looking into the cause of the mysterious fish deaths. (Photo by Annegret Hilse/Reuters)

A fish jumps over a net as a boy works in a fish farm at Htantapin township, outside Yangon, Myanmar February 18, 2016. One in five children in Myanmar aged 10-17 go to work instead of school, according to figures from a census report on employment published last month, and the opening up of the economy since 2011 has triggered a spike in demand for labour. Many children work in fish farming and processing. At Yangon's San Pya fish market, the country's largest, girls and boys as young as nine clean and process fish and unload boats and trucks during 12-hour overnight shifts. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Among the fish populations that could be harmed by the Xayaburi dam in Laos is the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish, considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the world’s largest freshwater fish. The fish, which grows to 650 pounds and about 10 feet long, is only found in the Mekong River. It is migratory, moving between downstream habitats in Cambodia upstream to northern Thailand and Laos each year to spawn. Some experts fear the Xayaburi dam could block the migration and drive the giant catfish to extinction. (Photo by Courtesy of Zeb Hogan/University of Nevada, Reno)