Otter fishing is a fishing technique which uses trained otters to fish in rivers. This method has been practised since the 6th century in various parts of the world, and is still practiced in southern Bangladesh.
Otter fishing is a fishing technique which uses trained otters to fish in rivers. This method has been practised since the 6th century in various parts of the world, and is still practiced in southern Bangladesh.
Huntsman: Come, Gentlemen! come, all! let's go to the place where we put down the Otter. Look you! hereabout it was that she kennelled; look you! here it was indeed; for here's her young ones, no less than five: come, let us kill them all.
Piscator: No: I pray, Sir, save me one, and I'll try if I can make her tame, as I know an ingenious gentleman in Leicestershire, Mr. Nich. Segrave, has done; who hath not only made her tame, but to catch fish, and do many other things of much pleasure.
Huntsman: Take one with all my heart; but let us kill the rest. And now let's go to an honest ale-house, where we may have a cup of good barley wine, and sing "Old Rose," and all of us rejoice together.
Izaak Walton (1653) The Compleat Angler. Chapter II – The second day On the Otter and the Chub – Piscator, Venator, Huntsman, and Hostess. [1]
Otter fishing has been practiced historically in a number of regions including Central Europe, Northern Africa, the British Isles, Scandinavia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, China and South America. [2] [3]
The earliest records of otter fishing are from the Yangtze region of China during the Tang dynasty (618–907) and was observed in the 13th century by Marco Polo on the Yangtze River. Otter fishing in China was practiced for subsistence and also collectively for profit. The Chinese reputedly learned the techniques from the fishermen of Southeast Asia. In India, otter fishing was practiced in the Indus and Ganges river basins, in Bengal and in South India along the Coromandel Coast. [2] [3]
Otter fishing was known in Europe from as early as the 16th century. The Scandinavians trained otters for catching trout. Olaus Magnus, the Archbishop of Uppsala, published a tome in 1555, De Gentibus Septentrionalibus (On Northern Peoples), which includes a sketch of a fishing otter. [3] One of the motifs of Magnus's 1539 map of Scandinavia, Carta marina , is an otter fetching a fish for its master, who is ready with a knife and a cooking vessel on the fire. [4]
Fishing with otters was known in England, Scotland, Germany and Poland. The first mention of otter fishing in the British Isles dates to 1480, while the method for training otters is described in the 1653 book on angling by Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler . [3] Individual sportsmen in the Americas and Europe have also used otters for sport fishing. [3] British sportsmen who had served in South India during the early years of the Raj have been known to import this practice to their homes in Europe. [3]
Otter fishing is also reported from Central and South America. [3] A Maxacali creation story from Brazil suggests that the practice of otter fishing may have been prevalent in the past. [5] Fishermen from Guyana used a different tactic – they would observe where an otter deposited its catch and later purloin the fish. [3]
In the Old World, two otter species have been primarily used in otter fishing – the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra), chiefly in Europe and North Africa, and the smooth-coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata), mostly in South Asia and China. [3] And in the New World, the giant otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) has been used, usually in South America.[ citation needed ]
Olaus Magnus wrote that the otter often fetches the catch for its master but "once in awhile forgets and eats the fish". [4] Izaak Walton's 1653 book describes otter pups, three to four months old, being domesticated and trained. The otters were muzzled to prevent them eating fish and secured by lines to their master. The otters then chased fish in a pond into a net. Another technique was to submerge nets and get the otters to shepherd the fish into them, after which the nets, along with otters and catch, were retrieved. [3]
In ancient China, the otter wore a leather harness on its body to which an iron chain was attached. The other end of the chain was either secured to the fisherman's boat or to a bamboo pole. The fisherman would cast his circular net, weighted at the edges, and pull it in. As the net was being pulled in, the otter would be introduced into the net through a small opening. The otter's role was to search for and disturb fish hiding in nooks and crannies and force them into the net so that they were trapped. The otter was subsequently rewarded in the case of a good catch. [2] The practice of using otters to drive fish into nets was prevalent in Asia and is still practiced in southern Bangladesh. [6]
Otter fishing is still practiced in Narail and Khulna districts, near the Sunderbans in southern Bangladesh. Here fishing with otters is a traditional practice in families, passed down through the generations by fishermen who breed the otters and train them to chase the fish into their nets. In the past, both Lutra lutra and Lutrogale perspicillata were used for otter fishing, but today, only L. perspicillata is used. Otter fishing is usually done at night between 9 PM and 5 AM. The average catch by a single boat in a night ranges from 4 to 12 kilograms (8.8 to 26.5 lb) of crabs, fish and shrimp. Feeroz et al. (2011) recorded a population of 176 domesticated otters amongst 46 groups of fishermen in these districts, of which 138 were working animals. Lack of fish, changes sought in livelihoods by the young and more economical methods of fishing have reduced the number of otter fishermen drastically. [7]
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques include hand-gathering, spearing, netting, angling, shooting and trapping, as well as more destructive and often illegal techniques such as electrocution, blasting and poisoning.
Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which includes weasels, badgers, mink, and wolverines, among other animals.
Izaak Walton was an English writer. Best known as the author of The Compleat Angler, he also wrote a number of short biographies including one of his friend John Donne. They have been collected under the title of Walton's Lives.
Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing for survival and livelihood.
A fishing trawler is a commercial fishing vessel designed to operate fishing trawls. Trawling is a method of fishing that involves actively dragging or pulling a trawl through the water behind one or more trawlers. Trawls are fishing nets that are pulled along the bottom of the sea or in midwater at a specified depth. A trawler may also operate two or more trawl nets simultaneously.
The Asian small-clawed otter, also known as the oriental small-clawed otter and the small-clawed otter, is an otter species native to South and Southeast Asia. It has short claws that do not extend beyond the pads of its webbed digits. With a total body length of 730 to 960 mm, and a maximum weight of 5 kg (11 lb), it is the smallest otter species in the world.
A fishing net is a net used for fishing. Some fishing nets are also called fish traps, for example fyke nets. Fishing nets are usually meshes formed by knotting a relatively thin thread. Early nets were woven from grasses, flaxes and other fibrous plant material. Later cotton was used. Modern nets are usually made of artificial polyamides like nylon, although nets of organic polyamides such as wool or silk thread were common until recently and are still used.
Drift netting is a fishing technique where nets, called drift nets, hang vertically in the water column without being anchored to the bottom. The nets are kept vertical in the water by floats attached to a rope along the top of the net and weights attached to another rope along the bottom of the net. Drift nets generally rely on the entanglement properties of loosely affixed netting. Folds of loose netting, much like a window drapery, snag on a fish's tail and fins and wrap the fish up in loose netting as it struggles to escape. However, the nets can also function as gill nets if fish are captured when their gills get stuck in the net. The size of the mesh varies depending on the fish being targeted. These nets usually target schools of pelagic fish.
The Neotropical otter or Neotropical river otter is an otter species found in Mexico, Central America, South America, and the island of Trinidad. It is physically similar to the northern and southern river otter, which occur directly north and south of this species' range. Its head-and-body length can range from 36–66 centimetres (14–26 in), plus a tail of 37–84 centimetres (15–33 in). Body weight ranges from 5–15 kilograms (11–33 lb). Otters are members of the family Mustelidae, the most species-rich family in the order Carnivora.
Artisanal fishing consists of various small-scale, low-technology, low-capital, fishing practices undertaken by individual fisherman. Many of these households are of coastal or island ethnic groups. These households make short fishing trips close to the shore. Their produce is usually not processed and is mainly for local consumption. Artisan fishing uses traditional fishing techniques such as rod and tackle, fishing arrows and harpoons, cast nets, and small traditional fishing boats. For that reason, socio-economic status of artisanal fishing community has become an interest of the authorities in recent years.
The Scottish east coast fishery has been in existence for more than a thousand years, spanning the Viking Age right up to the present day.
In respect of fishing techniques, cyanide fishing is a specific method of collecting live fish, mainly for use in aquariums, which involves spraying a sodium cyanide mixture into the desired fish's habitat in order to incapacitate the fish. This practice affects not only the target population, it also has negative and damaging effects on many other marine organisms, including coral and coral reefs.
The smooth-coated otter is a freshwater otter species from regions of South and Southwest Asia, with the majority of its numbers found in Southeast Asia. It has been ranked as "vulnerable" on the IUCN Red List since 1996, as it is threatened by habitat loss, pollution of wetlands and poaching for the illegal wildlife trade. As the common name indicates, its fur is relatively smooth, and somewhat shorter in length than that of other otter species.
A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish and other valuable nektonic aquatic animals in the sea, lake or river. Humans have used different kinds of surface vessels in commercial, artisanal and recreational fishing.
Fishing techniques are methods for catching fish. The term may also be applied to methods for catching other aquatic animals such as molluscs and edible marine invertebrates.
Fishing is a prehistoric practice dating back at least 70,000 years. Since the 16th century, fishing vessels have been able to cross oceans in pursuit of fish, and since the 19th century it has been possible to use larger vessels and in some cases process the fish on board. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to fishing:
Sundarbans East Wildlife Sanctuary, a protected forest in Bangladesh, extends over an area of 31,227 ha. of mangrove forest. It was established in 1977 under the Bangladesh Wildlife (Preservation) (Amendment) Act, 1974, having previously been a forest reserve. It is the most fertile of the three, non-adjoining wildlife sanctuaries established in the Sundarbans at that time, the others being the Sundarbans West Wildlife Sanctuary and the Sundarbans South Wildlife Sanctuary. The dominant mangrove species is "sundri" from which the Sundarbans region gets its name.
Thomas Barker (fl.1591–1651) was an English fishing guide and author of The Art of Angling (1651).
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