THATTA: Local fishermen caught more than 100 tonnes of giant sea catfish, an unusually large amount of catch netted after over three decades, at the mouth of Khai Creek in Indus delta late on Sunday night.

Fishermen told Dawn on Monday that it took seven vessels and more than five hours to harvest the entire aggregation of catfish which came to around about 100 metric tonnes, later auctioned at Karachi Fish Harbour at a price of Rs110 per kilo, making a total sale of Rs11 million.

Eyewitnesses said that a large vessel (hoara) noticed the large-scale aggregation of catfish at the mouth of the creek and then the fishermen on the vessel called six other bots operating in the vicinity to give them a helping hand because the cluster was too big to be harvested by a single boat.

In past, clusters of catfish were frequently found between October and March along the country’s coast. Such mass-scale aggregations called pinn in Sindhi and aaranga in Balochi are usually observed at the mouths of creeks in the Indus delta, Sonmiani bay, Ormara and Pasni in Balochistan.

Over 100 tonnes of catfish netted in one go in Indus delta

However, overfishing and changes in oceanographic conditions had made sighting of such aggregations a rare occurrence. The last such cluster was reported from the mouth of Khobar creek in March 2017 when about 80 metric tonnes of catfish were harvested by four boats.

Along the Balochistan coast, the last aggregation was reported in April 2015 near Malan and about 150 metric tonnes of catfish were caught by 10 boats. The largest known cluster of a school of catfish was reported in April 1984 in Ormara (Pedi Zur) when about 700 metric tonnes of catfish from a single school were harvested by fishermen and it took them five days to complete the operation.

Mohammad Moazzam Khan, technical adviser on marine fisheries with WWF-Pakistan, said that catfish formed large breeding aggregations in coastal areas. During such aggregations, females laid their eggs and being mouth breeders males picked up eggs from the waters and sediment and kept them in their mouth for about one month after which juveniles were released into the sea. During this period, male catfish did not feed and relied on their accumulated fat, he said.

He said that such aggregations might consist of one species or multi-species of catfish simultaneously breeding in winter. The present aggregation seemed to consist of only one species, which was called Netuma thalassina or giant catfish which could grow to a size of 180cm (achieving 19kg), he said.

Dr Tahir Rasheed, WWF-Pakistan regional head of Sindh and Balochistan, pointed out that the occurrence of large aggregation of catfish at the mouth of Indus delta in Khai Creek was indicative of healthy and rich environmental conditions along the country’s coast.

He stressed the need to reduce fishing fleets in Sindh and Balochistan as already recommended in 2016 under the Fisheries Resource Assessment Project conducted by the marine fisheries department and UN’s FAO.

WWF-Pakistan had trained fishermen to reduce by-catch and catch target fisheries through its capacity building programme and more than 30 fishermen had been trained to use android-based mobile application system to collect and report fish catch data, he said.

He said the initiative would help academia and policymakers fill data gaps, undertake research studies on various aspects of fisheries and formulate robust fisheries regulations.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2020