SKUAST Faculty of Fisheries celebrate World Fish Migration Day

For fish, survival and habitat restoration in water bodies improving connectivity critical: Experts

SRINAGAR: The Division of Fisheries Resource Management at SKUAST Faculty of Fisheries on Friday celebrated the “World Fish Migration Day” holding an intra-faculty painting competition at its Rangil campus, wherein experts called for effective measures to improve connectivity and allow hassle free migration of fish survival.
The faculty held the event in collaboration with the Dutch based World Fish Migration Foundation Groningen, with the event sponsored by the Directorate of Tourism JK.
The two day event also saw a trip of students along with faculty to Upper Sindh Hydel Power Project Kangan to apprise about mechanisms put in place about the fish migration at the project.
Speaking on the occasion Director Research SKUAST Dr Sarfaraz Ahmad Wani said that given the scale of livelihood fisheries sector provides worldwide, along with it being an important rich source of protein for people; safeguarding migration routes of fish by all means should carried so as to help rebuilding stocks and boost fisheries in the valley.
Deputy Director of Tourism Dr Ahsan-ul-Haq Chesti said that they would like to engage with experts at the faculty to safeguard the fisheries in Kashmir valley, as it traditionally has been a brand promoter for tourism, with the department focusing more on promoting eco- friendly.
Earlier the dean at the faculty who was also the patron of the event Dr Massarat Khan welcomed the guests and hoped such an event would go a long way in habitat restoration of fish.
The coordinator of the event Dr Tasaduq H Shah told Kashmir Reader that migration in most of the fish are quite critical for their survival as it not only helps them to reach out to potential food sources, help them in finding most favourable breeding grounds but also evade predation.
He added that wanton degradation of water bodies has already threatened the existence of fish and to further add to their woes their movements has been impeded by creation of barriers in the shape of dams, barrages, weirs in our river systems and water bodies.
He added that we have lost the presence of Mahseer fish in our water bodies and several other species too may be under threat and we urgently need corrective measures to allow fish to survive .
“We need to have cooperation and development efforts by various departments to create space by helping our fish to overcome the environmental variations but the unpredictability they face in being able to move freely,” he said, adding that we need to correct a lot of our existing infrastructure on water bodies to help fish migration.
The intra-faculty painting competition focussed mostly on this theme of “barriers” with students at the faculty who worked tirelessly for two hours portraying the impediments fish face by reckless building of barriers in their migration paths.
The faculty later judged these paintings with three of the winners getting mementos along with cash prizes for their effort.
While, Asra Matoo with her pencil sketch had shown a helping hand lead fish cross a dam barrier being adjudged the best painting at the competition , Faraz Siddiqui’s poster of a fish species on a defunct dam telling the tale of the a past remnant being adjudged second, while the third price was won by Adeeba Hamdani.
The event was co-coordinated by Dr Adnan Abubaker, Dr Rizwana Malik, Dr Syed Talia Mushtaq along with support from Dr FA bhat, Dr Irfan Ahamd , Dr FA Shah, Dr MM Kirmani and Dr Darve Sabina
Dr Rizwana Malik held the event proceedings while the vote of thanks was presented by Dr Syed Talia Mushtaq who thanked the dignitaries and others at the faculty for helping in smooth conduct of this important event.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.