Fishermen belonging to a hamlet near Pulicat are very happy now
Posted on: 17/Jan/2018 10:43:37 AM
The life of a fisherman is not easy always. Inspite of the fisherman’s hard work the amount they get by selling fishes to make both ends meet is not high. Fishermen community belonging to a hamlet of Sathankuppam near Pulicat are very happy now because of the artificial reefs designed by the Central Marine Fisheries Research institute or CMFRI. These artificial reefs are used as fishing aid by the fishermen here.
The news is huge amounts of fish of quantities of 50 kg were being caught every day in the recent season and this has made many fishermen happy. It must not be forgotten that in the month of December in the year 2004 this Santhankuppam and Korakuppam were totally destroyed by the Tsunami and this led to the shifting of about 200 fisherman families to another area.
Sinking fish aggregating devices in various shapes were done by these CMFRI officials to help the fishermen community present in these hamlets. It must be noted that recently 225 more fish aggregating devices were sunk off the coast near Pulicat. It is now revealed that the growth of algae on these artificial reefs attracts many species of fishes as they feed on the algae.
Some of the commercial varieties of fishes that were attracted are perches, groupers, breams and barracuda. Fishermen caught dozen of these species of fishes and they fetched Rs 500 per kilogram for these fishermen.
A fisherman Chandramohan spoke about how the devices were sunk within a short distance from the shore so that fishermen would be able to get back safely if the weather conditions turned bad.
According to an official, funding for this artificial reefing project launched by CMFRI was done by International Funding for Agriculture Development. This artificial reefing has been going on since the last ten years in half a dozen coastal districts.
