Defying ban, angler lands record Mahseer

The Mahseer is the biggest caught, breaking a six-decade old weight record. The giant fish found in Cauvery, is on the list of endangered species and angling is banned. Loughran, who was a guest of the ‘Coorg Wildlife Society’ (CWS) - an organisation working for ‘conservation of wildlife in Kodagu’ made the ‘historic catch’ on March 13 this year.

The ban has neither dimmed the enthusiasm of amateur fishermen wanting to pose for the camera with their catch, nor has it has deterred organisations facilitating anglers whose defence is that they catch and release the fish back into the river.

The previous record of 120 pounds was set by the legendary taxidermist De Wet Van Ingen in 1946 in the Kabini river. The fish caught by Loughran was nearly five feet in length (147 cm) and had a girth of 99 cm. Members of the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) is the leading authority on angling and records world record fishing catches and supports scientific tagging and other data collection programmes. The organisers claim that catch-and-release angling helps conservation of sport fish. It has much less impact on the environment than using nets to catch fish for research.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in 2010 banned angling as sport in the rivers in all the sanctuaries and national parks. In reply to a letter from the Karnataka Government in June 2010 seeking a clarification regarding the angling, Prakriti Srivastava, Deputy Inspector General (wildlife), MoEF, had written on August 3, 2010: "Capturing, coursing, snaring, trapping, driving or baiting any wildlife or captive animal amounts to hunting and presuming capture of mahseer amounts to sport is wrong." On October 11, 2010, the Ministry reiterated its order: “As per Section 2 (16) (b), Section 29 and Section 33 of Wildlife Protection Act 1972, angling of mahseer inside the protected area is illegal and cannot be allowed."