A short way from Sirajganj district town, the Chhaber Mor fish market on the highway comes alive at first light and has finished trading by 8am. Plates and pots are piled with fresh small fish from the rivers and beels: kachki, mola, puti, chapila, kajuli, chanda, taki and meni.

The market once offered a wide range of species; today the supply is thin. Overfishing, pollution, natural disasters, the loss of breeding grounds, blocked water flows and silted rivers are pushing many of the tastiest fish of the rivers, canals, beels and haors towards disappearance.

Officials of the Department of Fisheries put the number of freshwater fish species at about 261, of which 30 to 35 small species are found in good numbers during the monsoon. Farmed fish is on sale here too, but buyers look for river fish first.