Freshwater fishes release eggs in Halda

Some popular species of fish specially Ruhi, Katla, Mrigel and Kaliboush released record quantities of eggs on Thursday night in the river Halda, the lone natural fish breeding sanctuary in the country.

These fishes usually release eggs between March and June, said experts, adding though mother fishes took a long time to release eggs this year, their quantity is sufficient.

Halda expert Dr Monjuril Kibria said the fry collectors collected huge quantities of eggs in the early hours of Friday on 300 boats.

The river Halda is the only natural breeding ground in south Asia where fresh water species like these fishes release their eggs at a certain period of the monsoon for over a century.

Egg collectors Kamal Uddin Sawdagor said that they collected huge eggs from Thursday morning to afternoon.

“We collected 3-4 kg of eggs by each person. We hope that we will collect more eggs,” he added.

Shahidul Alam, UNO of Hathazari said that hundreds of boats were collecting eggs in different areas of the Halda river under Hathazari and Raozan upazila of the district.

Besides, upazila administration, naval police and fisheries office are also stationed there.