Photo credit : G. Venkata Raju (India) Description and review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
The Linganamakki dam located in the Sagara taluk has a length of 2.4 km and was constructed across the Sharavathi river, western Ghats in 1964 for the purpose of power generation.
The water-spread area has provided sufficient fishing ground for more than 200 permanently residing fishermen whereas the annual fish catch of the reservoir has been in the range of 200 tons.
The indigenous fishes in the reservoir enjoy high consumer demand include. These include Wallago attu, Ompok bimaculatus, and Channa marulius. The restocking of the reservoir with non-native fish species has been done in an attempt to enhance the reservoir fishery whereas the seeds of several species have been stocked. Tilapia mossambicus, (Oreochromis mossambicus) and common carp, (Cyprinus carpio) are the key introduced fish.
Afterwards, it has been observed that several factors contributed to the decline of the fishery of native fishes. These factors include the alteration of their habitat, the heavy fishing pressure as well as the competition for food and space as imposed by the introduction of exotic fish species.
Because exotic species has the least demand in local markets, fishery management strategies have been designed to tackle the problems of non-native species and in the same time to save the native species especially during their breeding season, while attempting to remove the introduced species. This has been tried also through the use of large size gill nets.
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