A southern Chinese city offered a 1,000-yuan ($157) bounty for every piranha caught after a man said he was attacked by one of the flesh-eating fish, the Global Times reported today.

Officials in Liuzhou distributed free meat and advised people to fish between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., when the water is warmest, the newspaper said, citing Lu Zhengxiang, general secretary of the Liuzhou Fishing Association.

The July 7 attack, in which a man said a piranha bit his hand, led to speculation that the species was dumped into the Liujiang River by staff from a local aquarium, the newspaper said. No piranha have been caught so far, it said.

Any piranha in the river are unlikely to survive winter, when the water temperature drops below 15 degrees Celsius, according to the report.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Nicholas Wadhams in Beijing at nwadhams@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net