Search

Hammerhead sharks are represented by four species in India's marine fishery – Sphyrna lewini, Sphyrna mokarran, Sphyrna zygaena and Eusphyra blochii. This paper describes the hammerhead shark fishery in India during 2007–2018 and summarizes observations on the biology of S. lewini exploited along the Indian coast.Hammerhead sharks are caught by trawl nets, gillnets, seines and line gear, mostly as bycatch. Annual average landing of hammerhead sharks during 2007–18 was 639 t, with a low of 290 t in 2018, of which S, lewini was the dominant species, comprising 95% of landings. Hammerhead sharks formed nearly 1.31% of the total elasmobranch landings. About 54% of hammerhead sharks were landed by trawlers.Length range of S. lewini in regular landings was 36–300 cm total length (TL). The dominant size class was 30–100 cm TL; 79.5% of males and 83.2% of females measured between 40 and 100 cm TL. Length–weight relationship was derived as W = 0.0218*(L)2.634 and W = 0.0131*(L)2.769 for males and females, respectively.Overall sex ratio (F: M) was 1.3:1; below 100 cm TL, the sex ratio was skewed in favour of females. The length at first maturity of males was estimated as 168 cm. The length at first maturity of females was estimated at 239.6 cm. Fecundity ranged from 12–40, size at birth was 36–45 cm TL. Bony fishes were the preferred prey, followed by cephalopods.The S. lewini landings in India are dominated by juveniles and threatens sustainability of the stock. Capture of juvenile sharks can be excluded to a considerable extent through strict implementation of minimum legal size of capture, and a conservative minimum legal size of 220 cm is suggested for this species in Indian waters. Identification of recurring juvenile aggregation grounds, their spatio‐temporal closures, gear restrictions and greater stakeholder awareness could lead to conservation of the resource and a sustainable fishery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impacts of climate variability and resulting changes in aquatic ecosystems have caused a rapid shift in the spatial distribution of species. This shift forces diversification in livelihood options among the fishers. Many resources are emerging as new fishery which could be the indicator of changes in the food web and ecosystems as a whole due to climatic variability coupled with changes in exploitation patterns. One of the emerging non-conventional fishery resources is the pufferfish which is exploited along the Karnataka coast, south-eastern Arabian Sea. A decrease in mean trophic level due to the increased fishing effort or climatic variability resulted in the removal of top-level predators leading to the rise of mid-level carnivores like Lagocephalus inermis in the Arabian Sea. A substantial increase has been noticed in the landing of pufferfish in trawl along with Karnataka since 2007 and has resulted in diversification of the employment in the fisheries sector. The pufferfish brought to the shore by trawlers are degutted, de-skinned, and cut into small pieces, and packed for transportation to other parts of the country. This sector has provided employment to about fifty women in each landing center, and each of them earns INR 200-300/day. The matured eggs collected from the fish are sold at a price of INR 10/kg. In addition, the trade of salted and dried fishes generated employment to an additional 50 women in the sector. This diversification has given more employment opportunities, especially to women. The study conducted revealed an increase of 1.5 fold from landing to the final product. Diversification of the livelihood to cope up with the changes in the fishery is an adaptation measure to combat species shift associated with climate change and climatic variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trawling operations, extended wide and far, have resulted in the emergence of many non-conventional fishery resources. Apart from regular commercial crustacean resources of shrimps, crabs and lobsters, crucifix crab, C. feriatus, C. smithii and C lucifera are forming bulk catch in regular trawl fishery recently. The south-west coast of India contributes onethird of country’s stomatopod production in which Oratosquilla nepa contributes the maximum. Extension of fishing grounds has resulted in exploitation of larger-sized stomatopods Harpiosquilla harpax, which is edible. Present study aims at understanding the spatio-temporal distribution of these non-conventional resources, through GIS-based resource mapping which is indicative of their distribution and abundance. The study showed that there is good potential for commercial exploitation of non-conventional resources which can form a part of the commercial fishery in coming years to enrich the seafood availability and to provide new avenues for fishermen for maximising their returns from the fishery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, India has been projected as one of the major elasmobranch fishing nations in the world. However, management and conservation efforts are not commensurate with this trend. Along with the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, several generic conservation measures are in place at the regional/local level. But India is still a long way from meeting global conservation commitments. We present here the status of elasmobranch management and conservation in India, with the specific objective of identifying the gaps in the existing set-up. We also present recommendations based on a national consultative workshop held at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi, in February 2020. We recommend the implementation of a National Plan of Action (NPOA-Sharks) and more inclusive governance and policymaking for elasmobranch conservation in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The composition and seasonal abundance of the fin and shellfish seeds in mangrove areas of Gangoli estuary were studied for one year from January to December, 2013. Monthly day time sampling was conducted with a rectangular dragnet of 75 m2 length having 5 mm mesh size. The mean monthly density was highest in January (Avg. of 12,996/haul) and lowest during May (Avg. of 859/haul). Thirty species of fish, four species of shrimps and two species of crabs belonging to 26 families were recorded during the study. Ambasis sp., Feneropenaeus indicus, Etroplus suratensis,Leognathus sp., Liza sp., Stolephorus vaganensis, Hemiramphus sp., Terapon sp. and Gerres sp. were the most abundant species/taxa. A total of 10 commercially important species comprising F. indicus, Etroplus suratensis, Liza sp., Gerres sp.,Siganus sp., Lutjanus russei, Macrobrachium rosenbergii, Lutjanus argentimaculatus, Sillago sp. and Penaeus monodon constituted 8.5% (April, 2013) to 93.7% (October, 2013) with an average of 37.2% of the total fish and shellfish seeds. Higher Species diversity (H') and Species richness (D) was recorded during January. The result of the present investigation gives an insight of the abundance and seasonality of commercially important fish and shellfish seeds, which may facilitate the brackishwater fish farmers to exploitthe seeds more pragmatically for their culture practice.