National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI)
Abstract
As a fishery, the immensely large (c. 68,800 km2 ) Lake
Victoria is a unique ecosystem which together with a
riverine connection to the Lake Kyoga basin share a
common endemic "Victorian" fish fauna (Greenwood
1966). Until the 1950s, the single socio economically
most important species of fish in these two lakes was
the native Oreochromis esculentus Graham (Graham
1929) even though the lake also contained a second
native tilapiine, 0reochromis variabilis , and over 300 other fish species (Beauchamp, 1956)