Sardines are back but don’t harvest them extensively yet, say CMFRI scientists

Known as Boothai and Baigae locally, their availability had reduced in the last couple of years

Fishermen in Padubidri, Udupi district, recently landed a huge catch of mackerel and oil sardine fish through the Kai Rampani method of fishing.

Fishermen in coastal Karnataka have good news that small and scattered shoals of oil sardine (Boothai and Baigae), whose yield had considerably reduced in the last couple of years, have been spotted during the last quarter of 2020 by Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), Mangaluru.

Yet, CMFRI has a word of caution to fishermen that they refrain from extensive and indiscriminate harvest of these yet-to-be reproductive functional fish.

CMFRI’s Mangaluru Regional Centre Head Prathibha Rohit and Scientist in Pelagic Fisheries Division of CMFRI K.M. Rajesh, who were engaged in studying the fishery and biology of oil sardine, have said that all fish in collected samples were immature and yet to reach the reproductive stage. Nonetheless, the shoals consisted of sardines in the size range which was above the minimum landing size (MLS) proposed by CMFRI.

The scientists said that Indian oil sardine, which was the most important fishery resource in terms of bulk as well as local preference along the south-west coast (Kerala-Karnataka-Goa), had registered very low catch during the last few years. Their landings had declined to a mere 12,396 tonnes in 2019 as compared to the past five-year average (2014-2018) landing of 77,704 tonnes.

The ICAR-CMFRI had, through its research, identified the cause for these fluctuations to unfavourable conditions in the ocean ecosystem following El Nino which, in turn, had a staggered effect on their fishery and biology.

However, small and scattered shoals of oil sardine were spotted and harvested along southern and central coastal Karnataka during the last quarter of 2020, indicating that the water in the region was becoming conducive for their survival and growth. The shoals were harvested by small

seines (Mattubale) as well as ring

seine and

Purse seines , Ms. Rohit and Mr. Rajesh said.

Raising a note of caution against their indiscriminate harvesting, they said that as their availability was meagre during the past few years, unabated harvest of the small sized immature sardines now would further damage the sardine stock that was showing signs of revival.

CMFRI recommended imposing a self-regulation in fishing sardines to help augmenting their survival and bringinig back the stock to healthy levels. CMFRI, Kochi, too has issued a similar advisory to Kerala fishermen and it was hoped that this would help provide an ambient environment for the revival of oil sardine stock.