Overview of the marine fisheries research in the Lakshadweep

The Union Territory of Lakshadweep consists of 10 inhabited islands and 16 uninhabited islets. The U.T. has an area of 32 sq km and possesses 400,000 sq km of Exclusive Economic Zone. Each island except Androth has a lagoon on the western side, and the lagoon and the reef porvide an ideal coral habitat for a variety of flora and fauna

Status of marine fisheries in India - Winter School on Impact of Climate Change on Indian Marine Fisheries held at CMFRI, Cochin 18.1.2008 to 7.2.2008

Marine fisheries sector in India plays a significant role in Indian economy and provides livelihood security to about 3.5 million coastal rural folk living in 3200 marine fishing villages. The substantial growth of the sector is due to innovative and efficient fishing practices, government policies, well developed harvest and post-harvest infrastructure and increased demand for marine fish products in the domestic and international markets. The growing demand resulted in fishing effort intensification, extension of fishing grounds, increase in overall length of fishing boats, holding capacity of the trawlers, fishing effort in terms of fishing hours through multi-day fishing by the mechanized sector and enhanced fishing operations by the motorized sector. Multiday fishing that came into vogue in the 90s. The production, which reached 2.7 million t in 1997, has remained almost invariant. The asymptotic production level in all the regions of exploitation indicates a little scope for further increase. Thus, there is an urgent need to ensure sustainability of resources through appropriate management interventions as envisaged in the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and also in the context of global warming and climate change

Targeted chemotherapy for parasite infestations in rural black preschool children

Objective. To investigate whether targeted chemotherapy can reduce parasite prevalence rates in rural black preschool children.Design. The study consisted of a before/after trial. Stool and urine samples were analysed on four occasions over a 21-week period.Setting. Creches in two rural areas of southern _ Kwazulu/Natal (coastal and inland). Patients. Two hundred children of 4 - 6 years of age attending 19 creches in the area. Intervention. Targeted chemotherapy using albendazole for nematode infestations, praziquantel for trematode and cestode infestations and metronidazole for protozoal infections was administered twice at an interval of 14 weeks.Main outcome measure. Prevalence rates.Results. The prevalences of Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura and Necator americanus infestation decreased significantly after treatment. Reinfestation rates 12 weeks after treatment were 16% for A lumbricoides, 33% for T. trichiura, 24% for Giardia lamblia and 3% for N. americanus. No reinfestation was noted for Schistosoma haematobium, Hymenolepsis or Taenia species.Conclusion. The study suggests that parasite prevalence rates in children can be reduced by the administration of appropriate chemotherapy at regular intervals. However, the provision of clean water and adequate sewerage facilities remains a high priority for black communities living in rural areas of South Africa

Marine fisheries of India: an approach to responsible fisheries management

The marine fisheries sector in India• has registered a phenomenal growth during the last five decades both quantitatively and qualitatively. The subsistence fisheries during the early 1950s produced about 0 .5 million tonnes annually. Currently, the total annual production is about 2.7 million tonnes

Development of Tuna Fisheries in Andaman and Nicobar Islands

The Andaman and Nicobar group of Islands consists of 572 islands, islets and rocky out crops and have an aggregate coastline of 1,912 km, which is about a fourth of the coastline of India. The continenta l she lf area is very limited with an estimated area of 16,000 sq. km and the sea is very deep within a few ki lometers from the shore. The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around the Islands encompasses around 0.6 sq. km, which is around 30% of the EEZ of India

Current status of tuna fisheries in India

Tuna fisheries in India have undergone significant changes in recent years. Though the coastal multi-species fishery is the mainstay for harvesting tunas and tuna-like fishes, targeted fishery for exploiting the high value tunas is emerging. Awareness has been created among the stakeholders that the continental shelf resources are more or less fully utilized and that further avenue for development lies in harvesting the oceanic tuna stocks. Fishing capacity from the shelf fishery is being diverted, with appropriate modifications, for harvesting the oceanic tuna resources. The production of tunas and tuna-like fishes has gone up to an all time high of 158,458 tonnes during the year 2008, out of which 24.2% was formed of oceanic tunas and 35% by neritic tunas. Exports of tunas and tuna products have shown remarkable growth with an all time high export figure of 37,302 tonnes in the year 2007-

Management of scombroid resources of India

Scombroids consisting of mackerels, seerfishes and tunas are an economically important pelagic fishes whose average landings during the 90s was 2.81 lakh t forming 11.7 % of the total marine fish production in India. Their demand in the domestic and export markets is on the rise and the group assumes topical importance in a situation where most of the coastal fishery resources are exploited to the near optimum level. Resource potential, status of exploitation and management and conservation issues regarding the scombroid resource in the coastal fishery sector are presented and discussed

Magnetic Field Uniformity Across the GF 9-2 YSO, L1082C Dense Core, and GF 9 Filamentary Dark Cloud

The orientation of the magnetic field (B-field) in the filamentary dark cloud GF 9 was traced from the periphery of the cloud into the L1082C dense core that contains the low-mass, low-luminosity Class 0 young stellar object (YSO) GF 9-2 (IRAS 20503+6006). This was done using SOFIA HAWC+ dust thermal emission polarimetry (TEP) at 216 um in combination with Mimir near-infrared background starlight polarimetry (BSP) conducted at H-band (1.6 um) and K-band (2.2 um). These observations were augmented with published I-band (0.77 um) BSP and Planck 850 um TEP to probe B-field orientations with offset from the YSO in a range spanning 6000 AU to 3 pc. No strong B-field orientation change with offset was found, indicating remarkable uniformity of the B-field from the cloud edge to the YSO environs. This finding disagrees with weak-field models of cloud core and YSO formation. The continuity of inferred B-field orientations for both TEP and BSP probes is strong evidence that both are sampling a common B-field that uniformly threads the cloud, core, and YSO region. Bayesian analysis of Gaia DR2 stars matched to the Mimir BSP stars finds a distance to GF 9 of 270 +/- 10 pc. No strong wavelength dependence of B-field orientation angle was found, contrary to previous claims.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures ApJ, accepte

Recent Trends in Sea Surface Temperature and its Impact on Oil Sardine

The oil sardine is a coastal, pelagic schooling fish, forming massive fisheries in India. It has high population to doubling time of less than 15 months and is probably the largest stock in the Indian Ocean (www.fishbase.org). Like many other small pelagics, the oil sardine also has shown pbpulation crashes and sudden recoveries in the past. It is a tropical fish, governed by the vagaries of ocean climatic conditions. It is known for its restricted distribution in the Malabar upwelling region along the southwest coast. It attains a maximum total length of about 22 cm and plays a crucial role in the ecosystem as a plankton feeder and as food for large predators. The annual average production is 3.8 lakh tones (15% of all India total catch) valued at about Rs 350 crores. It is a cheap source of protein and forms a staple, sustenance and nutritional food for millions of coastal people