Wednesday, July 2, 2008

M'lore: Satellite technology to aid fishermen


India - Will the fishermen of the coastal Karnataka make amends in their methods of fishing operations in the next fishing season which will begin roughly 50 days from today? Sounds unlikely, looking at the irrational fishing habits of our fisher folks. But the help is on the way thanks to the Indian Remote Sensing Applications Centre at Hyderabad, the fishermen in Mangalore, Udupi and Karwar are able to see the type of fish, size of the shoal or the depth of water available.

The IRSAC has put into place this system for the coming season. The Indian Remote Sensing Applications Centre (IRSAC) at Hyderabad has been giving readings of the remote sensing satellite to all the fishing harbours to help the fishermen to track the fish shoals. The system works on the basis of the GPS technology and satellite mapping of the seas. The fisheries department in the state has been asked to make use of this facility for the coming season. To avail the readings of the system the government will have to set up an earth station not bigger than a computer room with modern gadgets. The department of fisheries has moved papers to avail this system and the first one is likely to come up in Mangalore.

According to the statistics available with the fisheries department the fish catch was coming down progressively in the last ten years. The coastal fishermen have landed lesser fish every year since then. The statistics states that the total landings have come down by 20 percent in the last year and it has slid down from 1.80 lakh metric tonnes from the three districts to 1.74 lakh tonnes between 2007-08.

The officials in the fisheries department in Udupi and Mangalore state that this was mainly due to the fishing habits of the fishermen. They net the juvenile fish by using small eyed nets instead of using large eyed net from which the juvenile fish could escape. But with the IRSAC gadgetry this could be avoided and the right type of fish and right size of fish could be caught. This also means that there will be more fish for those fish lovers king size Mackerels, bigger jumbo shrimps and oil sardines!

Source : http://mangalorean.com/

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