Decadal status of Large Pelagic fishery in WestBengal

The marine landings of the state have fluctuated widely over the years with the maximum of 4 lakh tonnes recorded in 2011. Pelagics dominate the marine fishery and contribute around two-third of the marine landings. Major large pelagic resources landed were seerfishes, queenfishes, tunas and cobia. Sporadic landings of barracudas, billfishes and dolphinfish were observed in certain years. Average annual landings of large pelagics during 2010 – 2019 were 6,131 t forming 2.65% of the total state landings. More than half of the landings were contributed by seerfishes, followed by queenfishes. Major gears contributing to the landings were gillnets (60%) and trawl nets (38%). Scomberomorus guttatus formed 95% of the seerfish landings and were landed by both trawl nets and gill nets, whereas Scomberomorus commerson landed only by gillnets. Among queenfishes landed by trawl nets and gill nets, Scomberoides lysan dominated followed by S.tala and S.commersonianus