Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species.
Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae.
As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry.
Photo: AFP
Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary committee set up to tackle the spread of the fish.
“We talked to local residents and found out that the spread of tilapia has got worse — they found them in small canals, which was not the case before,” Nattacha said.
The outbreak of tilapia would cost the Thai economy at least 10 billion baht (US$292 million), he said.
The fish, native to West Africa, were first discovered in Thailand’s rivers in 2010 before spreading rapidly in 2018, and are now also found in the US state of Florida and in the Philippines.
In July, the Thai government declared the eradication of the species a national priority and began encouraging people to consume the fish.
Promotional activities in Phetchaburi Province advertised tilapia-based fish sauces and sausages.
Restaurants have also increasingly used the fish in cuisine, fried with garlic or sun-dried.
It remains unclear how the fish arrived in Thailand, but local media reports have said they could have been imported by a company from Ghana in 2010.
A parliamentary investigation is under way to determine the cause of the infestation, Nattacha said.
The Thai government has encouraged locals to catch the fish, offering to pay people 15 baht per kilogram.
It has also designated 75 vending areas around the country where the fish can be sold.
Authorities have released predator species to hunt down the tilapia and are also developing genetically modified blackchin tilapia to produce sterile offspring.
A UN science panel last year warned that the tilapia are spreading faster than ever, wrecking crops, distributing disease and upending ecosystems.
More than 37,000 alien species have taken hold far from their places of origin, costing upwards of US$400 billion a year in damages and lost income, the panel said.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS