It is a long monsoon for coastal Karnataka

Mangalore: The Karnataka coast is having an extended rainy season. The South West monsoon have ended but the North East monsoon have taken over now resulting in the entire coast going wet beyond their normal season of rain. As a result, fisheries have taken a severe beating. The fishermen have already lost 10 days of the new fishing season 2022-23 (September-May)

It is characteristic of Karnataka coast that the South West Monsoons ends sometime in second week of October in the coastal areas and the north eastern monsoons gave one or two showers, but this time the North Eastern monsoons have been active over the coast ever since the South West monsoons have subsided giving the coastal areas an extended monsoon period. As a result of this extended monsoon, the fishermen were expecting a good catch of high value fish like giant mackerels, seer, kingfish, pomfrets, cuttle, giant squids, jumbo and tiger prawns, red rings, fast travellies, pink perches and ribbon fish. In terms of value the first ten days of fishing in every new season bring not less than Rs 1000 crore of export variety fish just in the coast of Karnataka, say sources at Marine Product Export Development Authority in Kochi. "There are several low pressure systems prevailing over the Bay of Bengal and smaller systems have formed over the western coast also which is resulting in rains in the coastal areas as well as south interior Karnataka. These systems are going to prevail indefinitely for next few days. Though such rains are termed as 'normal' for the eastern parts of state, for the western coast it was not" said an official in the IMD Bangalore station.

The IMD Trivandrum station has recorded excess rains in almost all parts of the Kerala and Karnataka coast at least by 40 per cent than the last year's figures. Sources in the station told that "it was unusual for the West Coast to have un-seasonal rains in such copious volumes. The most important aspect of the rains was that it was pouring over the sea and the coast after covering the eastern parts of Karnataka and Kerala states" Could it be a result of climate change? When asked the sources said "it was an isolated case, if it happens next two years same time around, it could be categorized as 'un-usual weather' and becomes a case for detailed probe, low pressure systems are formed all the time after a strong cyclonic circulation occurs in this case the Jal cyclone has left micro systems back" The Arabian Sea Monsoon Experiment (ARMEX) data network launched in 2002 all over the West Coast has also indicated extended activity of North Eastern Monsoons over the Arabian Sea. "It was too premature to conclude any abnormal activity at this point of time but study will continue" said sources. But the un-seasonal rains have left the coastal areas of Karnataka gasping for a break, "The seas are still very rough and only large boats like long liners and purse seine boats are venturing into the sea side and most of them do not even reach the 50 meter fathom depth (about 20 nautical miles) within the Exclusive Economic Zone of India. This has resulted in a dip in fish catch in all the three maritime districts of Karnataka. "The high value varieties like seer fish, pomfrets, jumbo prawns and shrimps, ribbon fish, cuttle fish, several types of perches and three spotted crabs have not been coming in large volumes as it used to be in the past" The same trend was continuing in Udupi and Uttara Kananda district according to sources in the Karnataka Fisheries Development Corporation.

One of the large-scale exporters of dried fish -Gujarat Fisheries- has given up market operations this year. According to Ijaz Ahmed, the director of the company in Mangalore, "Karnataka was the largest producer of the quality dried fish like various types of sharks (not the endangered types) rays and shark fins. These products have good market in Nordic countries, South East and the Orient but this season the export has taken a nose dive."