Fishermen on the Meghna river in Hatiya upazila of Noakhali have netted a giant stingray weighing seven maunds, or 280 kilograms. Brought to Hatiya's Chairman Ghat on Wednesday afternoon, it drew a crowd, and was then cut into pieces and sold for about Tk 90,000. Under the Bangladesh Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act 2012, hunting, collecting, buying, selling or marketing the species is completely prohibited — but nobody stopped the sale.

Local fishermen said a group had set a 'charghera' net in the Meghna near Bhasanchar on Tuesday, and the cartilaginous sea fish was found trapped in it that afternoon. On Wednesday a local fish trader bought it by auction for Tk 90,000 at the ghat's Jamal Member fish depot, then carved it up on the spot and sold the pieces to residents.

Abdul Bari, a resident of Subarnachar who was at the ghat, said the fishermen did not seem aware that catching a stingray is a punishable offence.

According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), there are 16 species of stingray. Of the eight to ten found in Bangladesh, two are critically endangered and three endangered. The pitambari or nangla and the ghonti stingray are critically endangered; the pannya, shingchowain and thottya ghapri are endangered. Other species recorded here include the chitrahaush, short-tailed, kali, phul, badur, bada, thain and chuni rays, several of which may not be sold.

District fisheries officer Harun-or-Rashid said he was aware of the incident. Under the Fish Protection and Conservation Act, he said, catching stingray is not directly prohibited; but the wildlife and forest law lists it as an endangered or near-extinct species, and that law bans catching and selling it.

Repeated calls to Molla Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, divisional forest officer of the Noakhali coastal forest division, found his phone switched off, and district wildlife and biodiversity conservation officer Ibrahim Khalil did not answer. In the gap between the two departments' mandates, a protected species was sold at an open ghat.

Source: Prothom Alo