Capture fisheries
Also called: Wild catch fisheries · Topic: Rural Development: Diversification, Allied Sectors and Organic Farming · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Capture fisheries means catching wild fish and other water animals from their natural homes. These homes can be the sea or inland waters like rivers, lakes and reservoirs. Nobody breeds or feeds these fish. People only harvest them. The catch depends on how many fish nature replaces, so taking too many can lead to overfishing. Overfishing means fish are caught faster than they can breed back. That is why capture fisheries need rules, like the monsoon fishing ban that protects fish during breeding time.
Example
Fishers in Lakshadweep catch wild tuna, such as yellowfin and skipjack, using pole and line. This is their traditional method: each fish is caught with a hook on a pole, so very few unwanted fish are caught by mistake. Indian Ocean yellowfin is already overfished, so a plan to catch more of it is held back by how much wild stock is left.
Don't confuse with
- Aquaculture (culture fisheries): fish are farmed and raised in ponds, tanks or sea pens. Mariculture (fish farming in the sea) and seaweed farming are also aquaculture, not capture. Today inland fisheries and aquaculture supply about three-quarters of India's fish output.
- Inland fisheries: this tells you where the fishing happens, not how. Inland fisheries can be capture, like river fishing, or culture, like pond farming.