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Another Instance of Irresponsible Fishing
I was in Karwar a couple of days back when I encountered this curious fish I had never seen before. A group of fishermen had just hauled in their catch and were sorting it out on the beach, separating and throwing to the side the fish that were of no economic importance. Some local kids found this particular fish (pictured below) among the by-catch, and upon asking they showed it to me saying it was a "shark", and since I had my camera with me, they told me to photograph it. They then dug a pit in the sand till they found water, and put the fish in it, apparently to revive it. Fortunately it was alive, and when it started moving around actively, they picked it up and released it into the sea.
I later identified it as an Indian Swellshark (probable ID, confirmation needed. I used this for reference- Marine Species Identification Portal : Indian swellshark - Cephaloscyllium silasi). It appears to be a little-known species that lives on the sea bed and has no economic value.
This individual was luckily found alive by the children and was released back. It was good to see a few other kids also releasing some of the by-catch (eels, crabs, etc.).
But I wonder how many more of these, and even countless other species (such as pufferfish, as I witnessed), get needlessly destroyed due to such irresponsible and plain greedy fishing practices (fishing is supposed to be halted during the monsoon to allow marine animals to sufficiently reproduce for the coming season). If those kids hadn't been playing around at that time (they were not there the previous day), these few fish wouldn't have been rescued.
And this happened only as a result of small-scale fishing near the beach. So one can imagine the massive scale of destruction caused by factory trawlers.
An issue that is in great need of thought, I believe, especially in a country like India, where sea-food forms a major part of the diet in several cultures, and which at the same time has rich marine biodiversity in need of protection.
Thanks for reading.