Hilsa catch in Mirsharai fell for five years as fishermen left the trade

Many fishermen in Mirsharai upazila of Chattogram were giving up their trade because they could not find enough hilsa at sea even in the peak season, Jagonews24 reported on 2 August 2025, citing upazila fisheries office figures that showed the catch falling every year from 2020 to 2024. Local fishermen and others involved believed the economic zone built along the Saherkhali coast had changed where the fish range, while experts also pointed to changes in the flow of fresh water from upstream, pollution and climate effects.

According to the senior upazila fisheries officer's office, Mirsharai landed 327.4 tonnes of hilsa in 2020. The catch fell to 252.3 tonnes in 2021, 147.4 tonnes in 2022 and 116 tonnes in 2023. In 2024 it was only 36.49 tonnes.

The upazila has 2,557 registered fishermen in 29 fishing villages, with about 5,000 families, the fisheries office said. Fishermen said they could not see why the catch kept falling despite repeated fishing closures. In 2025 all fishing in the Bay of Bengal was banned for 58 days, from 15 April to 11 June, a period aligned with India's ban for the first time. Hilsa fishing is also closed for 22 days during the October spawning season each year to protect brood fish.

Ratan Jaldas of Domkhali Jaldas Para told Jagonews24 he supports a family of six. Every season he buys nets on dadon, an advance repaid from the catch. With catches falling for several years, he had to borrow from a local NGO to repay it, and the two fishing closures a year left his family struggling.

Jodu Jaldas of Anandabazar in Saherkhali union called hilsa "a golden deer" now. "Sea and river pollution has increased, so hilsa is declining day by day," he said, adding his view that big dredgers used to fill land in the Mirsharai economic zone were also driving the fish away. Ajoy Jaldas of the same area said he no longer went to sea because the fish were not there as before; he had taken up farming and had been more or less forced to leave his forefathers' trade.

Md Harunur Rashid, former chief scientific officer of the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute's (BFRI) Riverine Station in Chandpur, told Jagonews24 that several causes had been identified. "Excessive pollution in rivers is damaging hilsa breeding and habitat," he said, and the formation of submerged chars and industrial zones on riverbanks were obstructing the fish's normal movement. In his view, climate change and dredging to extract sand from the sea were also harming hilsa ranges and habitat. Experts cited in the report also named rising sea temperature, over-harvesting in earlier years and waste from the economic zone.

Senior upazila fisheries officer Ariful Islam said fishermen had not caught as much hilsa as hoped that year and the fisheries department was worried. "Hilsa is no longer found along the coast as it used to be. The main reason is that hilsa production and breeding grounds are being disrupted. Also, the landing ghats have been changed because of the economic zone, which has reduced the catch," he said.

The government had earlier declared a hilsa spawning ground of nearly 7,000 square kilometres, with Mayani point in Mirsharai, Chattogram, among its boundary points and the others in Bhola, Cox's Bazar and Kalapara in Patuakhali. In September 2023 a second spawning ground of about 342.5 square kilometres was declared on the Baleshwar river. A 2023 New Age report, citing the Fisheries Research Institute, listed the Mayani-Mirsharai estuary among five main hilsa breeding areas and described the stretch from Mirsharai to Lalmohan in Bhola as the largest.

Output was falling nationally as well. Citing Department of Fisheries data, The Daily Star reported in April 2025 that hilsa production in 2023-24 was 5.29 lakh tonnes, down from 5.71 lakh tonnes the year before and the lowest in seven years. BFRI scientist Mohammad Abu Kawsar Didar said then that shallower water on many migration routes and harvesting beyond the sustainable limit were among the reasons.

Photo: Biswarup Ganguly / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, The Daily Star, New Age, The Business Standard