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Fish seed stocking in the nursery of Beledanga wetland

Barrackpore, 5^th September, 2022
ICAR-CIFRI has stocked 125kg IMC seed in the nursery pond of Beledanga society on 27th August 2022. The stocking program was conducted under the guidance of Dr B K Das as an initiative under SCSP program of integrated wetland management and production enhancement. It has been noticed that the seed cost one of the major costs in culture-based fisheries in wetlands.

The target in SCSP and SDG programme of ICAR-CIFRI is to reduce the seed cost and increase the fish production from the wetlands. As a part of the programme, it ahs been decided to rear the fish seed initially in the nursery then in pen before stocking the advanced fingerlings in the wetlands. In this connection the IMC seeds were stocked in the nursery pond of Beledanga wetland. The average length of Rohu seed was around 5.5cm and average weight 1.6g, average length of Catla seed is 6.5cm and weight around 3g and average length and weight of Mrigal seed is 5cm and 1.3g respectively. The ratio of the stocked IMC was Rohu: Catla: Mrigal around 5:3:2 respectively. Water samples were collected from the nursery pond for laboratory for further analysis. Observations on macrophytes available in the Beledanga beel was carried out and documented. Ms Gunjan Karnatak, Ms Sangeeta Chakraborty, Mr Kausik Mondal and Mr Purna Chandra were the associated members of the team for the programme under the coordination of Dr. P. K. Parida.

Team had a discussion with the fishers in the society hall regarding stocking and harvesting strategy in the wetland. They stated usually the fish catching is restricted from the month of August till December in case of big fish. There is no restriction for SIF catch, it is carried throughout the year by the local fishers. It can be concluded that the fish catch is done for about 120 days in a calendar year. During the catch, fishers form groups comprising of 25-30 members in each group. Four to five such groups operate from 3am to 6am. Usually the catch is done by encircling an area with a net of mesh size 1-1.5 inches. The major operational fishing starts from January onwards where daily 100-120 fishers contribute their effort to catch around 50 -60 quintal fish. Near about 6-8 boats are used in this major type of catch.

The Net they used are around 900ft in length. Other types of nets used are gill net of different mesh size like 1 inch (targeting fishes like Puntius, Tengra or SIF) and 5 inch. By cast net each group catches from 20-30 kg/day. Gill net is operated by 70-80 persons daily. Members possess nets of length 450-650ft. We have visited houses of fishers to see their crafts and gears. Nets of different mesh sizes were documented. Local bamboo traps were also displayed. Lift nets and push nets (locally called Sitki) were also documented. A drastic change in the water quality of the beel was observed due to Jute retting.