Penaeid prawns belonging to the genera Parapenaeopsis,

Penaeus and Metapenaeus of the

family Penaeidae exploited by mechanised trawlers

support a fishery of considerable magnitude

along the Mangalore coast. Among the penaeid

prawns exploited Metapenaeus dobsoni, M. Monoceros,

M. qffinis, Parapenaeopsis stylifera,

Penaeus indicus and P. monodon are important

and contribute upto 90-99 % of the prawn catch

along this coas

Muniyappa, Y

Sreedhara, B

Sukumaran, K K

CMFRI Digital Repository

ISSN 021.4 380 X VEIPSOF lELODIOUSSEOnCE' TOIHt / MTIOr LiurdlRiRSEai MARINE FISHERIES INFORMATION SERVICE c 1947-1996 ; *:;:r—^o^' ^«SM^^ No. 152 mw JANUARY 1998 L^ '^^ * 'f^' - .iS-r/**."* ' • ' - ^ » - . « Uir «rc^.»i i T T / ^ TECHNICAL AND c l - ^ - c l K - :H <=H I <=4 c ^ I EXTENSION SERIES ^^T^^t^ ^ F m ^ TTTfrF^T^ft CENTRAL MARINE FISHERIES 3 T ^ ^ O T ^ ^FFFgrmr RESEARCH INSTITUTE <=bin=iH, ^rrrcT COCHIN, INDIA INDIAN C O U N C I L OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH 8 2 0 POTENTIAL NEW RESOURCES OF PENAEID PRAWNS OF THE MANGALORE COAST K.K. Sukumaran.B. Sreedhara and T. Muniyappa Mangalore Research Centre, ofCMFRI, Mangalore -575 001, India Introduction Penaeid prawns belonging to the genera Para-penaeopsis, Penaeus and Metapenaeus of the family Penaeidae exploited by mechanised traw-lers support a fishery of considerable magnitude along the Mangalore coast. Among the penaeid prawns exploited Metapenaeus dobsoni, M. Mono-ceros, M. qffinis, Parapenaeopsis stylifera, Penaeus indicus and P. monodon are important and contribute upto 90-99 % of the prawn catch along this coast. Others like, Solenocera crassicor-niss Trachypenaeus curvirostris, Parapenaeus longipes, Penaeus semisulcatus and P. canalicula-tus, occurred in stray numbers in the trawl catches until recently, but none of them landed in appreciable quantities so as to support a fishe-ry of any consequence except perhaps Parapen-aeus longipes which sustained a fishery of some importance particularly during April-May along the Mangalore coast (Sukumaran, K.K. 1995. Indi-an J. Fish., 32(2) : 194-197). Recent years have witnessed the emergence of some of these uncon-ventional species of pravwis as resources of consi-derable fishery significance. The fishery of some of these prawns is reported for the first time along the southwest coast of India. Catch and effort From 47.4 t during 1992-'93 forming 2.2 % of all prawns, these prawns improved their lan-dings to 261.3 t (9.7 % of all prawn catch) in 1993-'94 and during the following year, it increased to 373.4 t (12.0 % of all prawn catch) (Table 1, 1992-'93 catch not shovm). A total of 330.6 t (10.7 % of all prawn catch) was caught during 1995-'96 and 243.1 t in 1996-'97 (11.0 % of all prawns). The total number of trawl units operated showed an increasing trend over the years with a minimum of 65,195 in 1993-'94 and a maximum of 72,559 in 1995-'96. The landings of these prawns were mostly during the latter heilf of the fishing season (from January to May) with the maximum catches in April-May (Table 2). These prawns together contri-buted upto 31.0 % of the all prawn catch in May. It is also seen that 95-100 % of the catch of these prawns were landed by multi-day trawlers opera-ting at 25-100 m depth. Important species and their catch details Solenocera crassicomis was the dominant species. The annual catch ranged from a mini-mum of 69.4 t in 1993-'94 (forming 26.6 % in the other prawns and 2.6 % of toted prawn catch) to a maximum of 185.3 t in 1994-*95 (when it contri-buted 49.6 % in the other prawns and 5.9 % of total prawn catch). During 1995-'96, 159.6 t of this species was landed forming 48.3 % in the other prawns and 5.2 % of total prawn catch. A maximum of 113.4 t was obtained in May 1996. Trachypenaeus curvirostris was the second dominant species. The annual catch ranged from 136.2 t (forming 41.2 % in the other pravras and 4.4 % of all prawns) during 1995-'96 to a maxi-mum of 166.5 t in 1993-'94 (63.7 % in the other prawns and 6.2 % of all prawns). The highest catch was recorded in May 1993 (85.5 t). Penaeus semisulcatus was the third impor-tant constituent among the other prawns. The minimum and the maximum annual catches were recorded in 1994-'95 (14.9 t) and 1995-'96 (25.7 t) respectively. Although this species contri-buted upto 4-8.5 % of the other prawns, it for-med less than 1 % in total prawn catch. The highest monthly catch of 13.6 t was realised in March 1994. Penaeus canaliculatus landings ranged from 3.2 t (1993-'94) to 12.6 t (1994-'95). It formed 1.2 % of the other prawns and less than 1 % of total prawns. A maximum catch of 3.8 t was obtained in January 1996. Remarks The present study has indicated the emergen-ce of Solenocera crassicomis, Trachypenaeus cur-virostris, Penaeus semisulcatus and P. canalicul-TABLE l. Annual landings (tonnes) o/T. curvirostris, P. semi sulcatus, P. canaliculatus and S. crassicornis at Mang-alore and Malpe combined during 1993/'94 -1996/'97 1993/'94 1994/'95 1995/'96 1996/'97 Average No. of units 65,185 Total prawns 2,687.4 T. curvirostris 166.5 P. semisulcatus 22.5 P. canaliculatus 3.2 S. crassicornis 69.4 Total 261.3 373.4 330.5 243.1 302.1 Catch/unit in kg. 4.0 5.7 4.6 4.0 4.6 % in total prawns 9.7 12.0 10.7 10.0 10.7 65,951 3,120.2 160.6 14.9 12.6 185.3 72,559 3,078.1 136.2 25.7 9.1 159.6 61,298 2,433.3 126.8 7.6 40.3 68.4 66,248 2,830.0 147.5 17.6 16.3 120.7 atus as potential new penaeid prawn resources which supported fisheries of some magnitude along the Mangalore coast. It is evident that with the vast changes occurring in the marine fishe-ries sector, the prawn fishery witnessed remarka-ble changes in its species composition with the addition of a number of species which were, hitherto, not known to support a fishery of any significance along the Mangalore coast. TABLE 2. Mean monthly landings (tonnes) ofT. curvirostris, P. semisulcatus, P. canaliculatus and S. crassicornis at Managalore and Malpe combined during 1993/'94 - 1996/'97 Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Total No. of units Total prawns T. curvirostris P. semisulcatus P. canaliculatus S. crassicornis 317 14.7 0 0 0 0 2,469 60.0 0.5 0 0 1.1 4,018 57.8 2.5 0 0 4.6 7,281 289.1 0 0.3 7.4 0.5 8,713 393.3 0 0.5 0 0.7 8.487 372.0 6.4 1.2 1.2 4.0 8.050 375.5 12.2 4.5 1.6 2.7 8,479 400.0 30.7 5.1 1.1 10.0 9,479 444.6 36.6 3.0 1.4 33.2 8,953 416.9 58.7 3.1 3.5 63.9 66,248 2830.0 147.5 17.6 16.3 120.7 Total Catch/unit in kg % in total prawns 0 0 0 1.6 0.6 2.7 7.1 1.8 12.3 8.2 1.1 2.8 1.2 0.1 0.3 12.8 1.5 3.4 21.0 2.6 5.6 46.9 5.5 11.7 74.2 7.8 16.7 129.2 14.4 31.0 302.1 4.6 10.7 8 2 1 AN ASSESSMENT OF CRAB RESOURCES OFF CHENNAI (MADRAS) V. Thangaraj Subramanian Madras Research Centre & Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Chennai - 600 006, India Introduction Crabs, which form the bulk of bye-catch of trawl-fishing, have been increasingly experien-cing heavy fishing mortality along the Chennai coast since the introduction of mechanised traw-lers in the 1960s. High consumer demand coupled with easy availability of finance for fishing opera-tions caused the additional pressure on the stock. The annual production of crabs thus shot-up from less than 10 t to more than 1,500 t within the last few decades. Such an exploitation on any limited stock raises the possibility of over-fishing. Expolitation has to be judicious and needs periodical monitoring of the stock size and remedial measures, in case of depletion. However, this fine of investigation on the resour-ces of crabs especially along the east coast is lacking. The available information pertains to Chennai, the leading centre of crab fishing and is limited to a passing description in a review on crab fishery of the country by Rao et al. (1973) and to some details on the estuarine crabs of the nearby Pulicat Lake (Thomas, 1972). Two taxono-mical studies are, however, available which also highlight the rich resources of the pelagic (Prem-kumar, 1972) and benthic crabs (Krishna-moorthy, 1985) of the Chennai coast. The pre-sent article is directed to the commercial importance of crab fishery of this area, with an attempt to assess the current level of the stock, along with the permissible limit of catch and effort leading to rational exploitation. Data base Data on catch and effort were collected from commercial trawlers landing at Kasimedu, the only base used for trawler operations in Chennai. Adequate care was taken to cover both daily and long cruisers. Fishing area and method Trawlers are operated round the year at varying depths and distances from the base with 

Potential new resources of penaeid prawns of the Mangalore coast

http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/4554/1/Article_02.pdf

Potential new resources of penaeid prawns of the Mangalore coast

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

CMFRI Digital Repository