CIFRI Awards
ICAR-CIFRI successfully bread hilsa using cryopreserved milt collected from the wild. There is a difficulty in getting both male and female at a time from the wild, so cryopreservation of milt and genebank development of this species is needed.
The institute is working for the past 10 years to establish the lifecycle of hilsa in captive conditions in collaboration with other ICAR fisheries institutes. This time, in another collaboration with ICAR – NBFGR, a methodology for cryopreservation of hilsa milt has been developed and suitably utilized to produce the offspring. The technology is first of its kind for hilsa breeding.
Hilsa, Tenualosa ilisha, is considered as the most important commercial fish of the Indo – Pacific region and it is the state fish of West Bengal. It is well known for the dietary supplementation of ɷ-3 and ɷ-6 fatty acids as well as its unique taste and flavour. The reported work gives a hope that captive rearing of hilsa and associated induced breeding will be feasible in near future through conservation aquaculture initiatives to overcome the issue of low availability of hilsa.
