VIJAYAWADA: Two Whale Sharks, locally called Chukka Sora fishes, each weighing approximately one tonne, were caught in the net of a local fisherman, Viswanathapalli Veera Babu. The incident took place near Gilakaladindi village in Machilipatnam mandal. The fishermen managed to haul them out with the help of a backhoe loader.
Veera Babu said that the fishermen caught two giant fishes on Friday, one of which was dead. Upon examining the catch, they realised the fishes were of the Chukka Sora breed, which has no sale value. Consequently, the dead and live fish were released back into the sea.
He explained that during low-pressure conditions in the Bay of Bengal, the sea becomes turbulent, causing large fishes to unknowingly come closer to the shore and get caught in the fishermen’s nets. He added that if they had been teak fish, which are very rare and have an estimated market value of around one to Rs 2 lakh per tonne, it would have been a different story. He also condemned the false reports that the fishes caught were teak fish and bought by Chennai traders.
Vivek Rathod, a conservationist and founder of Wildlife Conservation Through Research and Education (WCTRE) from Visakhapatnam informed that the giant fish caught by the Gilakaladindi fishermen were Whale Shark. They are listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list.