Other fin-fish resources

Abstract

Fishing is a profitable source of livelihood for the people of Lakshadweep where traditional methods of capture are still in vogue to a great extent. The traditional fishing methods and fishery of Lakshadweep consisting of 27 small islands of which only ten are inhabited have been briefly described by Hornell (1910), Ayyangar (1922), Ellis (1924), Mathew and Ramachandran (1956), Jones and Kumaran (1959), Varghese (1974), and Koya et. a/. (1956). The exploited resources have been dealt with by Silas et.al. (1986) and Kumaran and Gopakumar (1986). Even though 603 species of fishes are known from the Lakshadweep (Jones and Kumaran, 1980), only about thirty species contribute to the commercial fishery. Fish landings in some of the islands were not even sufficient for local consumption before 1958. The, efforts made during the past two and half decades to exploit the tuna resources by using pole and line has started paying good dividends. The remarkable increase in the landings of tunas especially skipjack is responsible for the present prosperity of some of the islands like Minicoy, Agatti, Kavaratti and Bitra. Though the islands have only an area of about 32 sq. km. the lagoons, reefs and submerged banks extending over an area of 42,000 sq. km. is endowed with several commercially important fishes. With the limited land area and a high density of population, the possibilities for developing other industries is limited, but the sea offers good scope for the progress of the islands. The vast difference in the estimates of fisheries potential of the Laccadive Sea which is reportedly of the order of 90,000 tones (Jones and Banerji, 1973) and the present annual landings (5,524 tonnes in 1986) indicates that further intensive exploitation is called for in the region.