Video credit: Waleed Masood (Egypt) Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
Hamata is the most southerly diving resort in Egypt’s Red Sea; situated about 180 km south of Marsa Alam, and about 360km south of Hurghada. Recently, Hamata is quickly becoming one of the southern Red Sea’s finest attractions. The mangroves attract a wide variety of birds all year round, with many more passing by during migration times.
Hamata is one of the best dive sites in the Red Sea. Similarly, Hamata could be one of the best fishing locations in the Red Sea region. Along with the great coral life there is the chance to see a variety of marine life including Barracuda, Dolphins, Turtles, Napoleon Wrasse, Reef Sharks, Stingrays, Moray Eels, Pipefish and even the occasional passing Whale Shark or Manta Ray.
The video shows that long line fishery has been used in this particular incidence
Photo credit: Waleed Masood (Egypt) Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
Hamata is the most southerly diving resort in Egypt’s Red Sea; situated about 180 km south of Marsa Alam, and about 360km south of Hurghada. Recently, Hamata is quickly becoming one of the southern Red Sea’s finest attractions. The mangroves attract a wide variety of birds all year round, with many more passing by during migration times.
Hamata is one of the best dive sites in the Red Sea. Similarly, Hamata could be one of the best fishing locations in the Red Sea region. Along with the great coral life there is the chance to see a variety of marine life including Barracuda, Dolphins, Turtles, Napoleon Wrasse, Reef Sharks, Stingrays, Moray Eels, Pipefish and even the occasional passing Whale Shark or Manta Ray.
This video shows the use of long line fishery for catching barracuda
Source of the photo: w. Harding Thompson, 1930. Cornwall, a survey of its coast, moors, and valleys, with suggestions for the preservation of amenities. Publisher: University of London Press.
Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
Introduction: Polperro harbor was a valuable source of income to the local lords of Raphael manor since the 12th century who owned it until ownership passed to the Harbor Trustees in 1894.
Polperro is a village and fishing harbor on the south-east Cornwall, UK. Polperro is well known for its wonderful location, surrounded by tightly packed old fishermen’s houses which make it attractive to tourists.
Polperro harbor and fishery: Over the centuries, fishing has been the principal occupation for Polperro families whereas the village used to be a pilchard fishing and processing port. In the old days, pilchards were caught in abundance by Polperro fishermen. A part of the catch was consumed in local markets while parts of the catch were exported to many parts of Europe.
While fishermen were fishing at sea, women were doing salting, pressing, bulking and cleaning the fish ashore. The oil resulted from pressing was collected and used as a by-product for heating and lighting.
It may worth mentioning that two terrible storms struck the Polperro harbor. The first was in January 1817 while the second was in 1824. Both storms left behind damaged fishing boats, demolished fish and salt stores, and washed away houses.
Today, tourism is the mainstay of the local economy whereas visitors come and enjoy this old fishing village, narrow streets, Polperro Festival and a lot more.
Photo credit: Wanna Thawinwan (Thailand) Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
Snakehead is one of the most common staple food fishes in Thailand. The decline in the harvests of wild snakehead, due to overfishing along with other reasons were behind the interest in farming snakehead in Thailand especially the species proved to be suitable for farming.
Even though there are several snakehead species in Thailand, only Channa striatus is the one selected for farming.
Snakehead culture has spread rapidly in Thailand due to the increase in demand in addition being a good replacement to catfish (Clarias sp.) which faced disease problems as well as declining farm gate prices.
The snakehead is often cultured in monoculture systems while there are few cases of polyculture systems.
Realizing that snakehead is an air-breathing fish, along with tolerance to ranges and variety of water quality parameters, it is well adopted to intensive system. With proper feed and stocking density, the fish often attains 300–500 gm in 9 months and 500–800 gm in 11 months.
Snakehead fry/fingerlings required for stocking are collected from natural waters and so snakehead farms secure their requirements from private fry collectors.
Usually the feed provided to snakehead is a mixture of mainly trash fish (90% or more) with rice bran. The production of about 10-20 kg/m3 seems a reasonable production range.
Photo credit: Wanna Thawinwan (Thailand) Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
Before 2002, the white leg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei did not appear in the fishery statistics in Thailand while almost all marine shrimp produced belonged to the black tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon. Afterwards, the local and export markets caused a major shift in shrimp production resulting in leaning more towards whiteleg shrimp on the cost of black tiger shrimp.
On 2002, the production of black tiger shrimp amounted 169,239 tons (73.8%) while was 60,000 tons for whiteleg shrimp (26.2%). With the drastic changes in the species composition, the production of black tiger shrimp seriously dropped to only 9,000 tons in 2007 representing only 1.8% of total farmed shrimp while the production of whiteleg shrimp amounted 490,000 tons in the same year (98.2%).
Credit of photos: Amal Abdlla and Lutfy Idris (Sudan) Description: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
The two photos show a type of artisanal fishery near Ismaelia (Egypt). This small wooden boat is operated by two fishermen; one for rowing while second is fishing. Fishing gears are simple and so the fish catch is often modest. The while box on the boat is an ice box which fishermen are using to preserve their catch till the end of their daily fishing trip.
The video shows dolphin performance at the Sea World, San Diego, California, USA. The review is trying to bring in some information that goes with this video.
Introduction: Dolphins that are affiliated to family Delphinidae belong to a group of marine mammals which are referred as cetaceans. The group includes about forty species. Dolphins are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves. They are carnivores, eating mostly fish and squid. Its life span is about 50 years.
Dolphins like all mammals are warm blooded. They breathe air using their lungs and that is why they make frequent trips to the surface of the water to catch a breath through a hole on the dolphin’s head that acts as a nose. Dolphins give birth to live young and they feed their young with milk.
Dolphin species vary significantly in size (length and weight). They are characterized by their streamlined body and flippers. Dolphins have specially adapted lens and cornea that enable them to enjoy excellent vision in and out of the water.
These beautiful mammals interact nicely with their trainers. Their intelligence, friendliness, smile and merry-looking eyes have promoted their use in entertaining humans.
Until recently dolphins formed the basis of a widespread fishing industry; only the Japanese continue to hunt them for food on a large scale. In addition, dolphins are accidentally caught and killed in large numbers in tuna seining operations.
Interaction of dolphins with Human: The utilization of dolphins in the dolphinariums is considered the pronounced use of dolphins. This has been based on their ability to imitation, memorization and performance to elaborate tasks. There are interesting stories whereas dolphins have rescued people from drowning. Other than that, The U.S. navy has trained dolphins to act as messengers to underwater stations, to rescue wounded scuba divers and protect them from sharks, and to locate underwater mines; although this project -underwater mines- received considerable public criticism.
Trade and conservation approaches: Live dolphins are still captured and exported for public display in dolphinariums in several parts of the world. Because the species is not to be threatened with extinction and are included in Appendix II, a sort of control on their utilization and trade which is regulated by CITES whereas trade is permitted only in exceptional circumstances.
Animal rights and welfare groups still consider keeping dolphins at dolphinariums a form of animal abuse. No matter how big the facilities are, the groups believe that dolphins do not have enough freedom of movement in pools which causes animals to become aggressive towards other animals or people. In fact, there are some situations whereas dolphins in captivity developed great stress which caused them to commit suicide by starvation, battering against walls, or drowning.
On the other hand, dolphinariums highlights their efforts and care to ensure the well-being of the animals.
Governments in several countries developed legislations and protection acts targeting the conservation of dolphin populations. Actions vary and include any of the followings:
Closing the dolphinariums
Prohibiting the imports and/or keeping dolphins in captivity
Conditioned use of dolphins though permits specifying the purpose whether public display or research
Developing breeding programs in most western countries, to provide the dolphinariums with bred animals
Video credit: Alain Murekambanze (Burundi) Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
This video shows the sampling of silver carp fingerlings. Even though, silver carp was introduced to Egypt from Asia decades ago, its marketability, and so the consumer preference remained low due to the intramuscular bones. However, the food habits of the species being phytoplankton feeders have been utilized by some farmers especially when the fish feed prices went very high and turned to a real obstacle facing commercial aquaculture. There have been some recommendations to use silver carp in cages based on their feeding habits. It is believed that if the marketing of silver carp improves, their contribution in aquaculture will be also improved.
This video was taken in mundo marino and te mostramos lo que pasa en el fondo, Colombia
Introduction: The common octopus, Octopus vulgaris is found worldwide in tropical and semitropical waters and occur from the coastline to as deep as 200 m. The species is found in a variety of habitats, such as rocks, coral reefs, and grass beds. Octopus vulgaris lives for 12 to 18 months. O. vulgaris grows to a maximum total length of 1.2 m in females and to 1.3 m in males; maximum weight 10 kg while average common weight is about 3 kg.
Commercial value: Their commercial value is their utilization as food as well as in aquarium trade. In addition to being commercially important, this species is also one of the most commonly studied cephalopods. They are commonly collected in non-baited octopus pots whether made of clay, plastic or PVC.
Feeding habits: Even though common octopus feeds on variety of prey organisms, crabs, crayfish, and bivalve mollusks are their preferred food. The strong peak which the octopus has is used to punch a hole in the hard shell of molluscs and enable the octopus to reach the fleshy contents of their prey. O. vulgaris are out hunting during the day.
Reproduction: A female octopus may produce between 100,000 and 500,000 eggs little longer than 2 mm in length. Spawning may extend up to 1 month. The octopus hatchlings stay in the pelagic phase for 45-60 days. Afterwards, they settle out and begin their bottom dwelling life.
Camouflage: common octopus blends very well with its surroundings which make it difficult to spot them. This helps them to catch the passed-by prey and in the same time in the avoidance of their predators. Moreover, the octopus secrets in its saliva a nerve poison that paralyzes of their prey.
Conservation:Because of the high intelligence of common octopus, they have been –until 2013- the only invertebrate animal protected by the Animals Act 1986 in the UK; before this legislation was extended to include all cephalopods.
Photos’ credit: Amnaj Siripech (Thailand) Review: Abdel Rahman El Gamal
Sea ranching will be implemented in conjunction with the artificial reefs installation project as the sea ranching takes place one year after installing the artificial reef. The focus is given to local species of shrimp and fish will be released into the artificial reef area. Targeted species for the sea ranching project includes white shrimp, red snapper, grouper and swimming crabs. In regard to shrimp, the plan targets the release of about 2 million shrimp post larvae at each of defined sites every year.
