A number of national research institutes on Monday carried out dissection of the dead whale shark to ascertain causes behind the endangered marine specie's death, officials said.
Experts from Pakistan Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), Dr Zakia Khatoon, Institute of Marine Sciences of Karachi University, Dr Shehnaz, National Institute of Oceanography, Dr Hina Baig, World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), Khalid Mehmood, officials of Karachi Fish Harbour Authority (KFHA) and Fishermen Co-operative Society (FCS) took part in the fish dissection, at harbour.
"All the research institutes collected the samples of fish to understand the causes behind the fish death, its age and other aspects related to the environment and the sea ecology," officials of KFHA told Business Recorder. A certain part of the dead fish would be sent to Bedford Institute in Halifax, Canada which would also carry out a research to know the age of the whale shark which was found dead last week in Pakistan's coastal waters, they said.
"Since 2006 at least 36 whale sharks have been killed in fishing operations along Pakistan coast," said Technical Advisor of WWF-Pakistan, Muhammad Moazzam Khan. Despite there are no official statistics available on population of the gentle giant in the country, however a personal research of Moazzam Khan suggested that juveniles or sub-adults ranging between 2.5 feet and about 15 feet were the most victims killed during fishing.
The study said Pakistani waters were important breeding grounds for such sort of specie. Whale shark is the endangered marine specie which Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) put on its appendix II to ban its trade globally, he pointed out.
Pakistan has no legislation to protect whale sharks. "Export of its products or any parts are however restricted under the CITES Agreement to which Pakistan is a ssignatory," said Moazzam Khan The WWF said a female whale shark at Churna Island off Karachi Coast which measured 7.1 meters and weighed 2.47 metric tonnes accidentally entangled in the fish trawl net. The Fund showed concerns over the fishermen's practices of carrying the endangered spices to coasts for their huge price on the local market, instead of freeing them in open waters.
Comments
Comments are closed.