No Harm In Shark Fishing In Andaman Sea: Scientist

July 24, 2005

Release from: UNI

Port Blair: Despite objections from various NGOs, scientists favour shark fishing in Andaman sea, saying cap on shark population is necessary.

"If there is no check on shark population, in the long run shark population will increase and others will decrease due to over predation," said Dr P Paul Pandian, senior scientist and incharge of Andaman’s Fisheries Survey of India (FSI) unit.

Dr Padian said unbridled shark population could bring drastic change in ecosystem and therefore there was no harm in fishing shark in a controlled manner.

The MoEF notification, dated July 11, 2001, brought protection to species such as sharks, sea cucumbers, sea horses, sponges and corals, when it placed all sharks on Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 making their killing illegal. The ban was later partially lifted in order to allow small-scale, traditional shark fisheries to operate at subsistence levels.

On October 2002, the Andaman & Nicobar granted license for fishing sharks and rays in the Andaman water. The notification, however, excludes a few rare species in Schedule-I of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. They are Anoxypristis cuspidate, Carcharhinus hermiodon, Glyphius gangeticus, Glyphius gluviatilis, Pristis microdon, Pristis zijsron, Rhynchobatus djiddensis and Urogymnus asperrimus, according to official data.

Dr Pandian said some endangered species of sharks are also found in Andaman water and the Fisheries Survey of India is organising a series of campaigns for fishermen to teach the latter which shark species are to be caught.

"We have posters of those shark species, which are banned for fishing and we are giving huge publicity to spread awareness," the senior scientists of FSI told UNI.

Environmental lobbies active in Andaman feel the same that shark can earn good money for us, but, in other way round without killing them." Few small countries of South Asia have set an example of earning money from sharks without disturbing them in anyway," said Mr Subhasis Ray, General Secretary of HELP (an NGO of Andamans (Healthy Environment by Less Pollution).

Mr Ray said in those countries they have evolved a tourist package called "Shark watching" in countries like Maldives this "Shark Watching" attract tremendous tourist, thus a living shark earns good amount of money than a dead one, some times even double than that." This kind of practices should be promoted in Andaman to earn good revenue to attract more tourists, without harming the fragile ecology of Andaman." Mr Ray said shark fishing if becomes very necessary, it should be done without disturbing ecology for that capital number of sharks should be kept intact so that they can reproduce new generation.

"A recent Australian study found that an area where sharks have been fished out also showed an absence of spiny lobsters. It seems that in the absence of predation by sharks, the octopus population has multiplied and in turn decimated the lobsters. Thus maintaining ecological balance is must in nature," Mr Ray told UNI.