Fish and fisheries of the Chilka Lake with statistics of fish catches for the years 1948-1950

Abstract

The faunistic investigations of the Chilka Lake conducted during 1914-15 by the Zoological Survey of India under the direction of late Dr. Nelson Annandale brought out the richness and variety of the fauna and the very remarkable ecological features associated with it. An exhaustive collection of fishes made during the survey was described by Chaudhury (1916 a, 1916 6; 1917 and 1923) and Hora (1923) and of the prawns and crabs by Kemp (1915). Being an essentially faunistic survey little work was done from the point of view of fisheries, which were then of local importance only, as all the surplus catches of fish were converted into cured or dried fish and sent to districts in the interior, mainly the former "Native States" of the Orissa State. The growing demand for fresh fish from Calcutta market since World War I, however, has made the Chilka Lake a very important fishing centre, and with the use of ice as a preservative, curing and drying declined considerably, the greater part of the catches being exported in fresh condition. The growth of the fish trade since the pre-war days and the various factors influencing it have been described by Mitra (1946) in his scheme for the development of the Chilka Lake, but our knowledge of the biology of the fish and the fisheries of the Lake has remained very meagre. The Chilka Lake was chosen as one of the centres of estuarine fishery observations, because of the existence of certain favourable conditions, viz., the compactness of the area, the very low local demand resulting in the export of almost the entire catches in fresh condition, the existence of only a single channel and route of export (i.e., rail) facilitating the collection of statistics, and the co-operation of the State Fisheries Department.