Observations on the offshore prawn fishery of Cochin

Abstract

Although several accounts on the results of exploratory power fishing in the Indian coastal waters have been published (Hornell 1916, Sunder Raj 1931, Chidambaram 1953, Gopinath 1954, Jayaraman et al. 1959) no detailed account of the biological aspects of th species of prawns contributing to the fishery is available. Srivatsa (1953) has given a list of Crustaceans caught by the Japanese trawlers in Saurashtra waters. Per Sandven (1959) remarks "there is reason to believe that in the Arabian Sea outside the Malabar coast are found some of the richest prawn grounds in the world." John and Kurian (1959) observed concentrations of the penaeid prawn Penaeopsis philippii in deeper waters (100 to 150 fathoms) off the coast of Kerala. Menon (1955 & 1957), Panikkar & Menon (1955), George (1959 & 1961) and Menon & Raman (1961) studied the bionomics of certain species of prawns of the backwater and inshore fishery which is supported by the same species contributing O the off shore fishery of the area. Miyamoto et al. (1962) and Satyanarayana et al. (1962) reported on the development of trawling for shrimps on the West coast of India along with the influence of various types of trawls, boats and engines of different h. p. on the catches, and the prawn trawling gear of Cochin respectively. Apart from these and the reports of the Indo-Norwegian Project on their fishing results published from time to time there has not been any account of the off-shore prawn fishery of this coast.