Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India

Trends in catfish catches at Visakhapatnam showing disappearance of Arius tenuispinis

Volume 34 Issue 1&2

K. Lakshmi and K. Srinivasa Rao

Abstract

Average annual catfish landings at Visakhapatnam during 1970-'78 was 43.65 tonnes forming 7.79% of inshore marine fish landings. The hook and line (61.2%) catch consisting mostly of Arius thalassinus is and the bottom set gillnet (34.7%) catching mostly A. tenuispinis were the predominant indigenous gear. With the expansion of mechanised trawling and the advent of bottomset gillnets in 1972 (first introduced for catching prawns primarily), there has been a Steady decline in the inshore" catfish landings at Visakhapatnam to 17 tonnes by 1980-81. Catch statistics of Government of India trawlers during the period 1961-1965, showed that A. tenuispinis (60.7%) and A. thalassinus (38.2%) together constituted about 21 % of the trawl landings in the northeast coast of India (between Kakinada and False Point). The decline in the 80s of the catfish component in the trawl landings as Well as inshore landings was primarily due to the increasing scarcity of the formerly dominant A. tenuispinis, from the fishing grounds of North Andhra Coast. The species disappeared totally from the landings by 1984. Earlier estimations of mortality rates and yield per recruitment of A. tenuispinis showed that overfishing was greatly responsible for its disappearance. In the present study the damage done to the fishery is found to be largely due to the destruction of the feeding grounds of the fish off Visakhapatnam rather than overfishing.

Date : 31-10-1992