Nov 1, 2003, 7:56 PM

Kilka in Caspian Sea, Catching Finished

TEHRAN Nov. 1 (Mehr News Agency) – More than 200 Iranian fishing boats have to stop catching tiny Kilka fish from Caspian Sea because the amount of the fish has steadily depleted recently by comb jellyfish, a tiny creature called the Caspian Monster.

“Some 80 percent of the Iranian fishermen are now jobless and the rest are fishing some types of fish not economically profitable,” Head of the Iranian Union of Fishing Cooperatives Yusof Mohseni said, “Officials were to pay us Rls.40 billion (some 50,000 dollars) in compensation, but it has not yet been done.”

 

The result simply comes from a five-centimeter creature, whose insatiable appetite is quite enough to swallow planktons, the main diet of the Kilka. They even consume fish eggs and larvae in a way that some other species are affected but not the famous sturgeon, which produces caviar.

 

About six years ago, the new invader, originally from brackish water in bays and river mouths of the east coast of North America, swam into the world’s biggest lake and the newcomer threatened the already declining fish stocks because competition for food fiercely increased.

 

The voracious appetite of the Mnemiopsis helps the creature double its size in just one day, reach maturity within two weeks, and then produce 8,000 offspring every day!

 

AF/IS

END

MNA

 

News ID 2647

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