Exactly a year after a mammoth whale shark was brought ashore, local fishermen again brought carcass of another whale shark, measuring between 14 and 15 feet in length, officials said on Friday. The three-ton whale shark was netted near Churna Island off the Karachi coast which was dragged to Karachi Fish Harbour on Friday afternoon, officials of Karachi Fish Harbour Authority (KFHA) told Business Recorder.
“The KFHA sent a letter to the Marine Fisheries Department of Ports and the Shipping Ministry to ascertain the causes of the whale shark”s death and its age.,” they said, adding that KFHA would start dissecting the carcass on Monday.
The giant fish was already dead when it got enmeshed in a fishing net near the Churna Island, they said, adding: “In February last year, a fish of the same specie, but of larger size was trapped.”
Last year, local fishermen had accidentally trapped a 22-ton and 11-metre-long whale shark. The specie is declared an endangered marine vertebrate world-wide, officials said. “Whale Shark is an endangered specie, which falls in ”red-list” of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN),” they said.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) placed whale shark on its list-II of ”most vulnerable species in the world”, they said, adding: “Pakistan is a signatory of the convention”.
The biggest whale shark in Pakistan was caught at Baba Island off Keamari in 1947, which was 36-foot-long and weighted 50 tons. The mammoth catch still ranks among the largest whale shark trapped in the world, they added.
