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EveryFish

River or lake, Bangladesh

The Padma and Meghna at Chandpur

Where the Padma meets the Meghna, the heart of the hilsa fishery of Bangladesh, which lands most of the world's hilsa.

Chandpur sits where the Padma, the main channel of the Ganges in Bangladesh, joins the Meghna on its way to the Bay of Bengal. The town calls itself the city of hilsa. Each monsoon, shoals of hilsa swim up from the sea into these rivers to spawn, and thousands of wooden boats go out with gillnets to meet them. Bangladesh lands most of the world's hilsa, and the fish is its national fish.

The hilsa run

The hilsa, ilish in Bengali, is a shad that lives in the sea and breeds in fresh water. Adults move upriver from about June, and the main spawning peak comes in September and October around the full moon. The young, called jatka, drift back to the sea over the following months. Bangladesh protects the run with a ban on hilsa fishing for about three weeks around the October peak, a long ban on catching jatka and river sanctuaries where fishing is closed for part of the year. Fishing families receive rice during the bans.

A fish and a nation

Hilsa is central to Bengali food and festivals on both sides of the border, cooked in mustard, steamed in banana leaf or smoked. Bangladesh gained geographical indication status for its hilsa in 2017. Its exports to India are limited and are a recurring topic between the two countries, often eased before Durga Puja. WorldFish and other researchers credit the sanctuaries and bans with helping catches rise after earlier declines, though pollution, river silting and overfishing of young fish remain concerns.

Fish of The Padma and Meghna at Chandpur

RohuMajor carp of the delta's rivers and ponds

Still to be written: Ilish, Pangasius pangasius, Wallago attu, Chitala chitala.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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