Commercial Fish Fauna in the Landings of the Karaikal Fishing Harbour, South East Coast of India

In the Karaikal Fishing Harbour of Puducherry Union Territory nearly 260 mechanised fishing boats are operating and these boats carry out trawling operation in the coast from Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh to Ramnad district of Tamil Nadu. The present study is carried out from April 2022 to March 2023 to identify the commercial fishes which are landing in Karaikal Fishing Harbour. Stratified random sampling method was followed from each trawl and the collected commercial fishes were identified up to species level by using standard procedure. Totally 201 species of fishes belonging to 66 families and 125 genera were identified and all considered as that commercial fishes by the statement of local fisherman. The present study revealed that occurrence of large number of fishes from the order of Perciformes in the landings sites of Karaikal Fishing Harbour.