Conservation needs and management strategies for Migratory marine catfish resources

Abstract

The Marine catfishes are one of the most vulnerable resources for irrational harvest during their migratory and breeding phase. With the advent of mass harvesting gear like purse seine and trawlers, there has been a continuous onslaught on this resource during the periods of South bound or North bound migrations parallel to the coast. The damage is further aggravated when their spawning shoals are exploited from the surface often causing large scale destruction of parents and egg / embryos, leading to recruitment overtishing. Their production showed a continuously declining trend all along Indian coast, preferably along the SW and SE, since 1980's from 67,666 t (1982) to 37,518 t ( 1995). The paper gives the possible migratory direction and seawns of the resource. It is attempted to correlate the surface drift with the seasonal migntions. Various management practices are proposed to conserve the threatened group and suggested possible lines of exploitation of the non migntory species from distant waters, in the middle shelf and estimated their potential.