| Chitala Chitala – An Ideal Fish Species for Aquaculture Diversification |
Anisa Mitra* and Pratap Kumar Mukhopadhyay**
*Aquatic Bioresource Research Laboratory, Department of Zoology, University of Calcutta. 35, Ballygunge Circular Road, Kolkata – 700019.
**Regional Research Centre,
Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture
P.O. Rahara, Kolkata 700118
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INTRODUCTION
Aquaculture is considered to be the most efficient form of animal production system and from a subsistence level activity in the early eighties; it has become a dynamically developing sector in recent years. Over seven fold growth in last two and half decades (i.e. 0.37 million tonne to 4.03 million tonne at present) has made aquaculture a promising sector .It accounts for about half of the total fish production in the country. The freshwater aquaculture is being dominated by various cyprinids comprising of major carps like-rohu, catla, mrigal ,calbasu and exotic carps- silver carp, common carp and grass carp; catfishes like magur, singhi and pabda, the perch- koi, medium carps like bata and reba. Besides, there are freshwater prawn - scampi and other small indigenous fish species (SIFS).
There is still a very important fish species of the featherback group commonly known as chital(Notopterus chitala or Chitala chitala ) .But somehow the species C.chitala has not received adequate attention from aquaculturists so far despite having very high consumer preference. The consumer requirement is primarily met from the capture fishery from flood plain/ wetlands locally known as jheels and beels. Since its regular supply cannot be assured , there is a strong need to develop package of practices for its controlled culture in ponds and tanks not only as a means to diversify the cultured species and to meet its growing demand but also to ensure that such a valuable species does not become extinct.
Again, it is not only quantity or quality of fish that is important but also the variety of available food fish which the consumer will always prefer to have. This is possible also since we have a very rich gene pool of freshwater fish species available in our country.
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