Copyright (c) 2008 Derek Clontz/4-Page Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

American fishing ace Eddie Burkett jetted to Scotland with his lucky pole and snagged the prize of a lifetime – a baby Loch Ness monster that, in the words of one expert, offers up ”dazzlingly irrefutable proof  that not only Nessie, but also a big male” lurk in the depths of the fabled lake.

And while locals and wildlife officials feared the mother monster would go on a rampage after Burkett, 53, reeled the hissing fingerling to shore and slapped its head against a rock to stop its suffering, Nessie hasn’t vented - at least not yet.

“I’ve caught trophy trout and lunker bass, sailfish, salmon and channel cats, and that was great – but this is a dream come true,” says the man from St. Charles Parish, Louisiana.

“Fishing Loch Ness is something I’ve fantasized about since I was a kid. And you better believe hooking the Loch Ness Monster was my No. 1 goal.

“What I ended up with is no longer than a ruler – but it’s still the biggest catch of my life. I snagged him using a doughball that he hit so hard I almost lost my rod.

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“He was a good little fighter, too. For a minute there I thought my line would break – and I was using 50-pound test.”

There’s no denying that the 11-¾ inch creature matches up perfectly with descriptions of Nessie that have been floated by locals, tourists, scientists and adventurers since the monster was first spotted and described by Saint Columba, the man who introduced Christianity to Scotland, in the year 565.

Like Nessie, the baby was equipped with four broad fins for paddling, a long, slender neck and tail, a fat, globular body, a horse-like head, and a “crested ridge” on its back that‘s reminiscent of those seen on models of dinosaurs in museums.

What’s surprising to some is the baby’s small size. It tipped the scales at just 13 ounces.

And it‘s clear, says wildlife officer and Nessie expert William Moss, that “the little guy had a lot of growing to do to catch up with his 140-foot mother, who weighs at least 70 tons.

“It’s going to be interesting is to take a closer look at the baby to determine if he was born live or hatched from an egg. That’s going to tell us a lot about him, and a lot about Nessie, too.”

In fact, scientists from a dozen countries, including the United States, are lining up for the chance to study the baby monster’s carcass or obtain tissue samples for testing and analysis.

But what happens next is anybody’s guess – because not only is Scotland’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs claiming rights to the catch, outraged animal rights activists are threatening to stage angry protests if the baby’s remains aren’t treated “with the respect they deserve.”

“Nessie is a national treasure and nothing if not an endangered species,” says animal advocate and environmentalist Hilda Grooms. “The fact that Mr. Burkett didn’t release her baby after he caught it is unconscionable.

“It leaves me asking who’s really the monster here – Nessie or the American who killed her child?”

In his own defense, Burkett says that, because he never really expected to catch a Loch Ness monster - baby or full grown – once he reeled one in, he didn’t know what to do.

“What would you have done?” he asks. “I thought it was important to hold on to evidence that proves once and for all that the Loch Ness Monster is real.

“And I’m not like amateur fisherman who catch a fish and then let it gasp for breath and suffer for hours in a bucket while it dies.

“I do what Ernest Hemingway did – I snap their necks and put them out of their misery as soon as I catch them because that’s the humane thing to do.

“Now I‘m told that Nessie and the baby may have lungs like dolphins and whales, so maybe the baby could have breathed the air and maybe I could have kept him alive.

“But nobody‘s sure yet. They want to dissect the body to find out.”

At the moment, Burkett is keeping the baby’s body on ice while he and officials sort things out. He says if nobody else wanted it, he’d get it stuffed and mounted.

“But since everybody wants it,” he says, “I want to make sure it goes to the right place.”

The “right place” may turn out to be Scotland’s prestigious University of Glasgow, where biologists are itching to slice open the baby and find out what he’s made of.

“We’re probably looking at one of the last dinosaurs on Earth,” a tenured professor who spoke on condition of anonymity says.