Residents operating under Hope for Nature, a Community Based Organization-CBO supported by People’s Trust for Endangered Species-PTES in the United Kingdom started restocking the lake with the singida tilapia fish, locally known as Empongo in December 2020 at six conservation lake bays in Koome Islands.
Residents at Koome Islands in Mukono district involved in restocking of indigenous fish species have decried the increasing illegal fishing activities and lack of barriers to prevent
them against the predatory Nile perch.
Residents operating under Hope for
Nature, a Community Based Organization-CBO supported by People’s Trust for Endangered
Species-PTES in the United Kingdom started restocking the lake with the singida tilapia
fish, locally known as Empongo in December 2020 at six conservation
lake bays in Koome Islands.
The society has to date restocked the lake with 21,
000 singida tilapia fingerlings as part of a two-year project which intends to restock the lake with 40, 000 fingerlings. However, the residents say that their efforts have been frustrated by fishermen who are using illegal fishing gear and the lack of barriers such as cages to prevent the Nile perch from crossing the deep end of the waters.
William Isebaidu, the Hope for
Nature Project team leader says that the singida fish does not grow big in size
and is hard to be trapped with Lake Victoria authorized fishing nets of five
inches. A grown-up singida fish requires a fishing net of 3.5 to 4 inches.
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Josephine Nasuuna, a resident at Koome
notes that the demand for the other fish species was high before the Nile
perch became popular in the lake, buts its stocks have greatly reduced. But she fears that even with restocking,
fishermen beat up Fisheries Protection Unit-FPU forces to illegally trap the
restocked fish.
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Romulus Mulambi, the Mukono
District Fisheries Officer said he received similar concerns from the residents and that they are working with the Fisheries Protection Unit to intensify security operations and protect the restocked fish species which are highly sought after.
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The Mukono Residents District
Commissioner Fatuma Ndisaba appeals to residents of Koome to embrace the project
of restocking the lake by avoiding illegal fishing.
