HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF FISHERIES RESEARCH IN INDIA E.G. SILAS' Key words: Fisheries research, marine surveys, State Fisheries Departments, Fisheries Research Institutes of India Fishing in the earlier half of the last century mainly comprised artisanal inshore capture fishery usi ng sailboats and catamarans. and culture of Bengal carps (catla, rohu and mrigal). The Indian Fisheries Act of 1857 defined the powers !lnd responsibilities of the erstwhile presidencies and princely states. Immediately after India 's independence. for a few decades, the erstwhile Madras and Bombay States led the country in fisheries su rveys and research activities. With I.A.S. officers at the helm of state fisheries departments, these aspects have been relegated to the background and replaced by central government:!l agencies. Precursors oftoday's multitude of research organisations were the CMFRI and CIFRI (for the full names of these acronyms, please see the body oftht: article), established just a few months prior to the country's independence. With the proliferation of fishery activities and research, these parent institutions were split. in 1987, into CICFRI. CIF", CIFE, CIBA, ClFr, NRCCWF and NBFGR. CMFRI studies the fishery biology of commercially important fi sh and shellfish (both molluscan and crustacean), while the Fishery Survey ofIndia (PSI) is concerned with offshore fishery surveys. The original culture of Bengal carps has now diversifi ed to aquaculture of other carps, high altitude coldwater fishes, edible and pearl oysters and m4sse\s, prawns, crabs and lobsters, and their associated diseases and parasites. INTRODUCTION mai9taining sustainable yields. Today, with depletion of many stocks, rising tensions prevail .. With timely action, fisheries can continue among fishers who are loaded with excess capacity to provide food. jobs and enjoyment for millions in fishing crafts and gears. All this, despite the ofpeople worldwide. But ultimately this means United Nations Law of the Sea Convention changing ollr focus from what is done to a fish to (UNCLOS) of 1982, which was ratified in 1984, what can be done for the fish. And the time for granting rights to Coastal States to have an that change is now." extended jurisdiction over their Exclusi ve (Anne Platt McGinn, 1998) Economic ione (EEZ) of200 nautical miles from the coast for developing their fisheries. From the The world's oceans were for long traditional 12 nautical miles of territorial waters considered to have limitless fishery resources along the coast by Bay Islands, India today has freely open to all for exploitation. The conflicts of 2.02 x 10' sq. kIn sea area, comprising 0.86 x 10' sq. fishers over open access and.exclusive rights have kIn on the west coast (including the Lakshadwe~p intensified in the past fifty years. Worldwide, Sea), 0.56 x 10' sq. km on the east coast and 0.60 x many of the major fish stocks have declined, . 10' sq. km around the And.man and Nicobar reaching critical levels or have collapsed as was Islands. the case with the once thriving whaling industry For those interested in the wealth of our priorto World War II. Now we know that the living knowledge about the fish and fisheries dating from aquatic resources, while renewable, are not the pre-Vedic, Vedic and post-Vedic periods, the infinite, and need good management for period ofthe Sangam literature of south India, the works of Kautilya (ARTHASHASTRA) and King IE .G. Silas Foundation for Nature Conservation. Someswara (MANASOLLOASA) and the Mughal No. 37, Ambadi Retreat, Chelavanoor Road, period, reference is invited to Bora (1952), Raj Cochin 682 020, Kerala, India. Email: silaseg@\.snl .net (1955), Rao (1957) and Chitranshi (2000). 502 JOURNAL. BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCJ£Tr 100(2&3). AUG.·DEC 2003 FISHERIES RESEARCH IN INDIA FOUNDATION OF FISHERIES REsEA RC H IN INDIA entitled THE LAND OF THE PERUM ALS. Day was knighted and he was appointed the Inspector Carolus Linnaeus to Francis Day General of Fisheries oflndia and Burma. Recently The foundation for fisheries research in an excellent book on the life and works of Francis India was laid by some of the early naturalists, Day by Dennis Tucker and K.C. Jayaram, was zoologists and botanists who either worked in published by the British Museum of Natural the Museums of Natural History in England and H.istory. in European countries, where dried or preserved material from the east, including India, was Indian Fisheries Act - 1897 received, identified, catalogued and reported on. A milestone in the history of Indian From the times of Carolus Linnaeus, founder of fisheries is the enactment of the Indian Fisheries the modem classification for plants and animals, Act of 1897. The Act delegated to the erstwhile there have· been a number of taxonomists who Provinces (States) the responsibility of have studied fishes, crustaceans and other aquatic development and conservation of fi sheries in the organisms from India which earlier included inland and the territorial waters of the respective Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka States. It also empowers the States to formulate . (Ceylo~) , and from the coastal waters. Notable their own rules and regulations for the protection ich.lhyologists among them were Cuvier, and safeguard of their fisheries. Further, the A:ct Valenciennes, Lacepede, Bloch, Schneider, provided adoption of conservation measures to Forsskal, Bleeker and Albert Gunther. Among prevent the des truction of resources. As a early carcinologists were Fabricius, H. Milne consequence, the development, management and Edwards and de Man. They have described conservation of fish and fisheries became a State several fishes and crustaceans new to science. subject. many ofwhich are of commercial importance today. The. last 106 years have witnessed a sea There were also naturalists with different o change in fisheries research, education, extension avocations in India, who collected and described and development, and there is an imperative need fishes, other aquatic animals and plants and made . for promUlgating a new Fisheries Act. observations on bionomics. Notable among those who had contributed to our knowledge are Patrick Early marine surveys • Russell, Hamilton-Buchanan, Edward Blyth, The H.M.S Challenger Expedition in the · Stolizka, Sykes, J. McClelland and T.C. Jerdon. late sixties and seventies of the 19th century The most outstanding contribution was that of triggered interest in marine resource surveys in Dr. Sir Francis Day, a veterinary surgeon and the Indian seas. This was followed by the naturalist who travelled extensively in India in R.I.M.SS Investigator which carried out coastal the mid-nineteenth century and wrote several and deep-water surveys in the Bay of Bengal and scientific papers and monographs such as the the Andaman Sea. These resource surveys FISHES OF MALABAR (1865). Day's magnum opus brought to light many new and interesting fauna. THE FISHES OF INDIA in two volumes (1875-78) James Wood-Mason published a series of papers f'lllowed by FISHES in the 'Fauna of British India' on deep-sea crustaceans, especially from the Series in two volumes (1889) describing 1,418 Andaman Sea. The Navy also had Surgeon · species are the two most indispensable works on Naturalists working on board the Investigator, . Indian fish taxonomy to date. Day's interests were and among these the works of Alfred Alcock, catholic and, besides his works on ichthyology, Lloyd and Lt. Col. R.B. Seymour Sewell are most his most important contribution was a book invaluable. Alcock's book A NATURALIST IN INDIAN JOURNAL. BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 100(2&3), AUG.-DEC. 2003 503 FISHERIES RESEARCH IN INDIA SEAS (1902) is a very interesting narrative of the which led to a considerable amount of work on many discoveries made during his voyages. animal and plant species diversity. His Sewell was an authority on marine Copepoda. contribution to ichthyology, ecology and biology Later, when the Zoological Survey of India was of freshwater fishes has enriched our knowledge. founded in 1908, Sewell joined the Survey and his Hora's interest in fi sheries research led him to work on the hydrology and plankton of the head the Department of Fisheries of West Bengal Rhamba Bay, published in the Memoirs of the for some time and also play an important role in Indian Museum as part of the Survey of the Chilka the founding of the Central Inland Fi sheries lake, is an outstanding piece of work. Research Station at Barrackpore, Calcutta (=Kolkaia). His researches on fish, especially the Role of the Zoological Survey oflndia in fisheries "wandering of the Bombay duck", on Hi/sa and research several others, helped in understanding more of The Zoological Survey of India from its the ecology and species diversity of the Gangetic inception functioned as the Centre for research estuarine system. He was a source of great on fish, fisheries and marine biology. It was the encouragement to many. Those who worked with national repository for terrestrial and aquatic him, such as T.Y.R. Pillay, E.G. Silas, A.G.K. Menon organisms collected from the Indian region. This and K.C. Jayaram, subsequently headed research was made possible by its eminent Directors, management positions in both national and namely Nelson Annandale who initiated studies international organisations, thereby influencing on the hydrology of upland lakes, and coastal the development of fisheries research in its lagoons and lakes; Stanley Kemp who, in 1924, different facets. led the British Antarctic Expedition; RB. Seymour Sewell whose forte was marine biology and Role of State Fisheries Departments in oceanography; Baini Prashad, an authority on promoting fisheries research Indian molluscs and fisheries, and Sunder Lal It was Sir Frederick Nicholson who Hora, an ichthyologist par excellence, ecologist established the Department of Fisheries, in the and fish taxonomist. It is their leadership and erstwhile Madras Presidency, and a fish research output that kept the Zoological Sur~ey preserving unit for improving the keeping quality oflndia in a pre-eminent position among research of fish.