Bangladeshi biologist alifa Haque is supporting to have a look at and keep a mysterious. And rare ray known as the sawfish, but to achieve this, she ought to convince coastal communities. That those irreplaceable animals are extra treasured alive than dead.
Haque, who’s a country wide geographic explorer and edge of lifestyles fellow. Says that earlier than the 1990s, they have been a normal via-seize within the bay of bengal off bangladesh while tangled in nets, however now a notion that their flesh can cure cancer is riding their rarity.
“every kilogram of meat can fetch 40 to 50 us dollars, that’s a fortune thinking about that they could weigh as a great deal as one thousand kilograms, that is big, while even a monthly salary of best 30-forty us bucks isn’t assured in these groups, ” she says including that a fisher who has troubles at domestic might find it very tempting no longer to release the fish alive.
Similarly to the flesh, the giant saw-like rostrum of the fish is regularly bought as a souvenir. Haque says that about five years ago, she visited a fisheries processing center in bangladesh and were given a big wonder.
“we have been showing the pinnacle of the facility our images of rare sharks,” she says, “and all of a unexpected, he went again and came out with a sawfish rostrum (the “saw” that gives those sharks their call) that become as tall as me!”
Haque says that being on the tip of the bay of bengal, the coastal waters of bangladesh are extremely bio-numerous however there’s nonetheless a big quantity that isn’t always known approximately how many species are there or the fitness of their populations.
“we documented more than 15 species of sharks and rays for the primary time in bangladesh,” she says, “it wasn’t that they were not there earlier than, it become that they hadn’t been searched for.