Fish fauna, fishing gear and marketing channel of Morgangi beel under Melandah upazilla Jamalpur, Bangladesh

An investigation was conducted to assess the fish fauna, fishing gear and marketing channel of Morgangi beel in the Melandah upazila under Jamalpur district for the period of six months. Data were collected through personal interview. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools such as Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Crosscheck Interviews (CI) methods were used for collecting data. Forty four species of fish were identified from the catch of different gears used by the fishermen and among these, 7 species of carps, 4 species of snakeheads, 4 species of perches, 3 species of eels, 7 species of catfishes, 6 species of barbs, 3 species of khalisha, 3 species of prawn and 7 miscellaneous species were recorded during the study period. Different types of fishing gears broadly classified into three groups viz. nets, traps and wounding gear were found to be operated by the fishermen. From the survey, it was found that about 42% fishermen directly sold their fish to the consumer, while 50% of them disposed to the retailer and only 8% of the fishermen handed over their fish to the whole seller.