Lift ban on export of seahorses for tsunami affected

Parangipettai, Tamil Nadu, Jan 10 (UNI) The tsunami-affected poor womenfolk around the Chennai coast can now look forward to an alternative source of livelihood-- breeding of seahorses and pipe fish.

The Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology, the only institute in the country involved in the incaptive controlled breeding of seahorses and pipe fish, has asked the government to lift the ban on their export.

The capture and trade of these two variety of fish, which were once exported to China at Rs 2,400 a kg to be used in traditional medicines for treating various ailments such as asthma, impotency and general lethargy and pain, are now banned under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

Dr S Rajgopal, under whose guidance the institute has perfected the incaptive breeeding technology, says he has already trained 40 illiterate villagers, especially women, in two batches on how to breed seahorses and pipe fish.

''If the government supports us, we can extend the technology to the general public looking for alternative source of money,'' Dr Rajgopal told visiting journalists here, about 45 km from Chidambaram where the 94th Indian Science Congress took place.

The institute, a separate department of Annamalai University, was only partly damaged by the tsunami as artificial mangroves planted a few metres ahead on the banks of the Vellar estuary bore the brunt of the disaster that struck the Chennai coast on December 26, 2004.

The incaptive breeding, Dr Rajgopal says, will not result in the capture of the two varieties of fish but will save these from extinction.

''The government should permit private parties to export seahorses and pipe fish so that the poor womenfolk could have a source of livelihood,'' he says.

The institute, which has received Rs 25 lakh for the programme from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, has bred about 10,000 fish-- two species of seahorses and one specie of pipe fish-- since 2004.

It has also released about 200 of these in the Gulf of Mannar from where some were initially captured for incaptive breeding.

''We had put plastic tags on these fish and were able to recapture 4-5 of these,'' he says.

Showing to the visiting journalists the containers in which the two varieties of fish are in different stages of breeding, Dr Rajgopal says the institute uses 'Acetes', a zoo planktoon organism, as feed for the fish.

''The eggs of tiger barb fish are used as the feed since this fish is a prolific breeder and has a slender body like that of the pipe fish,'' he explains.

The Institute was set up in 1957 as the field laboratory for the Department of Zoology, Annamalai University, Parangipettai, Tamil Nadu.

The status of a separate department was conferred on it by the University in 1961, and in October 1963, the University Grants Commission (UGC) recognised it as the Centre of Advanced Study in Marine Biology for its outstanding research contribution.

UNI