THATTA, Jan 11: Pallo fish, highly prized for its delicious aroma and taste and a traditional delicacy across the province, faces threat of extinction in near future due to non-release of water downstream Kotri Barrage for a couple of years.

The fish whose scientific names is tenualosa ilisha lives out most of its life in the sea and then takes a long and arduous journey of hundred of miles upstream into the Indus river from the Arabian sea to mate and breed.

Another reason besides non-release of water into the sea is the absence or inadequacy of what is called fish ladders, structures on or around artificial barriers such as dams and barrages that can help the fish migrate.

Once comprising up to 70 per cent of total fish catch from the River Indus it hardly constitutes 15 per cent of the catch now. In the past, pallo has been reported to migrate as far as Multan in Punjab before the construction of barrages and dams on the river but nowadays it can reach only up to Kotri Barrage. The barrages have blocked the fish’s passage to its breeding ground.

The catch has dropped dramatically by 90 per cent. Reports of different food and agriculture organisations reveal that damage to fish migration had been caused over the past 25 to 30 years.

However, little is known about the population of pallo in Pakistan unlike Bangladesh and India where a lot of research had been carried out, but still scientists have very little information on the population and breeding grounds.

Nasir Panwhar and Zahid Jalbani, officials associated with the WWF, called for construction of fish ladders to allow it to regain its breeding grounds upstream.

They said that the construction of barrages on the river and decline in water flow to deltaic region had resulted in depletion of this otherwise highly prized fish.