Aquaculture Farming Practices in the State

The aquaculture practices in the State are mostly semi-intensive type and basically carp centric at present. The culture practices in the lower and middle belt of the State includes- Composite pond culture, integrated farming like-Paddy-cum-fish farming, Duck-cum-fish farming, Pig-cum-fish farming, etc.

Cold water fisheries & resources

The State is bestowed with numerous upland lakes, rivers, streams with rich population of indigenous fish species as its thriving fishery. The lakes are sparsely distributed and most of them are inaccessible due to lack of road communication. The department has recorded around more than 40 nos of high altitude lakes in Tawang district alone out of which 23 numbers have been geo tagged using GPS. The Exotic Trout Fishery is well established in some lakes, rivers and streams of Tawang and West Kameng district after the establishment of Trout fish seed farm in these two district during 1960’s and 1970’s in order to utilize the potential cold water resources. Efforts under way to develop and expand coldwater fisheries in other districts viz- Shi-Yomi, Lower Subansiri, Dibang valley, Anjaw district etc.

Development of exotic Trout fisheries

During the year 1966 first trout hatchery was established in Nuranang stream in Tawang District at an altitude 3660 meter above msl to incubate brown trout eggs brought from Jammu & Kashmir. The first attempt of incubation of eyed ova of brown trout in this hatchery failed because of unexpected and sudden freezing of water supply channel. In later years, fresh consignment of eggs was imported again and incubated successfully, thus the rearing of trout seeds started. Since then, the culture of exotic brown trout in the Nuranang trout hatchery farm was established in the State along with rainbow trout.

After successful raising of trout seeds to brood size breeding started in the mini trout hatchery having seed production capacity of 40 to 60 thousand eyed ova. The seeds produced in the hatchery were released in the natural Nuranang stream and other high altitude lakes of Tawang district like Sela lake, P.Tso lakes, Klemta, etc besides supplying to other north eastern state as and when demanded and hence become the pioneer State in Northeastern region to introduce exotic trout fish farming.

The 27 Km stretch of Nuranang stream is declared as Trout stream and banned from unauthorized fishing. The culture and breeding of rainbow trout during the early period of its introduction in Nuranang was not successful due to unavoidable technical reasons.

The Second hatchery unit was established at Shergaon, located at an altitude of about 1954 meter above msl in West Kameng district, in 1974-75, with a production capacity of 0.5 to 1.0 lakh numbers of eyed ova. The first consignments of Rainbow & Brown trouts were brought from Himachal Pradesh and successfully incubated and produced seeds and raised to brooder size and started breeding and culture of both species successfully. Third Trout hatchery was established during 1991-92 at Samteng in West Kameng district but project could not be commissioned.

In the recent years, the department has established two more trout hatcheries one each at Tawang and another in Mechuka, Shi-yomi district. At present there are 4 nos of functional Govt trout hatcheries in the State which produce trout fish seeds mitigating seed requirements to some extent and supports Trout fisheries development both in govt and private sector.

Glance of arunachal fisheries (as on 31st march 2024)