All stakeholders of fisheries sector on Tuesday agreed to undertake a third round of fishing net's test before finalising the mesh size to discard the use of existing lethal cord-web, which has left the country's marine species badly affected, sources said.
A meeting of fisheries sector's representatives including Secretary Sindh Fisheries Department, Managing Director Karachi Fish Harbour Authority, Director General of Marine Fisheries Department, Director Operations of Maritime Security Agency, chief of Sindh Trawlers Owners and Fishermen Association and head of Fishermen Co-operative Society unanimously agreed to hold another trip to the deep-sea to finalise the mesh size.
The final and third round of net test exercise is now expected to begin by next week to set the fishing net size for local fishermen of the province, particularly those of Karachi fish harbour and Ibrahim Haideri. The cost of each net test trip is about Rs 250,000, while the team of experts would head deep-sea toward Balochistan seawaters, as fish abounds there to test the net size and qualify it easily to the survey results, they said.
The stakeholders particularly the boat owners emphasised on carrying out final round of the trial with increased mesh size, as the existing measurement of net is about 55-millimetre with a view to give maximum space to juvenile fish and shrimp species to escape the trap, they said.
Fishing nets for examination has been arranged by Fishermen Co-operative Society and once the Sindh government specify the mesh size the society would make the nets available for all fishermen either by exporting or getting them woven through local makers. The Karachi Fish Harbour Authority would be responsible to enforce the net specifications at the harbour, they pointed out.
According to sources, the experts would also focus on the nets' tail-cord size because it is seen severely lethal to trapping the juvenile marine species including fish, shrimp, crabs and other unwanted sea creatures as bycatch. "The 3-4 meter long tail-cord size of fishing nets is causing damage to the marine life for it has no escape roots to allow the undersize species to flee," they said.
Catch of undersized fish and shrimp species by local fishermen had grown excessively during the last many years, as the practice continued unchecked by the concerned fisheries departments, they said. "The phenomenal decline in landing of matured fish and shrimp species eventually made the concerned authorities step up against the use of illegal nets and have the stakeholders agreed to introduce a better option to save the undersized species from early perishing," sources said.
According to an estimate of fisheries sector, a truck transports at least 14,000 tons to 18,000 tons of trash fish (undersized fish) on a daily basis from Karachi fish harbour to different factories for making poultry feed out them. "About 50 to 70 such trucks carry the trash every day," they added.