The
Arapaima
Files.
The biggest
fish you've
never heard of.
The arapaima is one of the largest freshwater fish on Earth — it can grow to 10 feet long and weigh over 400 pounds. It breathes air. It surfaces every few minutes to gulp oxygen from above the waterline. In the flooded forests of the Amazon, it is a giant.
It is also disappearing. Overfishing and habitat loss have pushed arapaima populations into steep decline across much of their range. In some areas, they are already gone. Joey read about this and couldn't let it go.
He spent weeks going through every article, every video, every scientific paper he could find. He built a file. He called it the Arapaima Files. This is what's in it.
It has to
surface to
breathe.
So do we.
Joey picked the arapaima because it is impossible to ignore once you know about it. A fish that breathes air. A fish that can grow to the size of a person. A fish that is being hunted out of existence because it has to come up for air — and when it does, it's right there.
He also picked it because there is a real researcher working to protect it. A woman scientist in the Amazon who has spent years studying arapaima populations, working with local communities, and building the data that conservation decisions depend on. Joey found her. He decided to back her work.
That's the model. Learn everything. Find the scientist. Shine a light on their work. One species. Every year.