Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

‘Thotta’ keeps Vizhinjam on the boil

Thiruvananthapuram: The illegal use of crude underwater explosives, “thotta”, for fishing by a small section of fishermen belonging to a particular community at Vizhinjam is endangering the fragile communal peace between two traditional fishermen communities in the coastal area.

The police are finding it difficult to effectively curb the destructive method of fishing for want of fast sea-going craft and officers trained to enforce law in marine environments.

Sub-Inspector, Vizhinjam, G. Sunil Kumar, said the police confiscated the catch of fishermen who used explosives for harvesting fish at sea. He said police check-posts had been placed on the two roads leading out of Vizhinjam to ensure that such catch did not reach the open market. “Fish caught using explosives bleed a lot, making it easy for the police to confiscate such consignments. In the past two weeks, the police confiscated 60 large consignments of fish caught using explosives.”

An activist of a fishermen’s union, which campaigns against destructive methods of fishing, said only around 100 fishermen living on the Vizhinjam beach used explosives for fishing.

They often used thotta, fashioned out of gelignite sticks smuggled to Vizhinjam from Tamil Nadu through sea, for catching fish (tuna, mackerel and sardine) that move in shoals.

He said the fishermen in Vizhinjam, Chowara and Kovalam were complaining of diminished catch because of the use of explosives for fishing.

The rampant use of thotta was also destroying the ecologically fragile marine environment off Vizhinjam. He said underwater bombs used for fishing had already destroyed vast areas of submarine reefs, which once served as natural hatcheries for fish. Only roughly 10 per cent of the fish caught using such explosives could be retrieved from the sea. The rest of the dead fish often washed up ashore in a rotten state.

The police said clashes at sea between fishermen over the use of thotta were becoming frequent. Explosions destroyed fishing nets and drove away fish shoals. Fishermen had been injured and possibly even killed (one such case was reported at Vizhinjam in 2004) in the process of using explosives for fishing.

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