KUALA LUMPUR, May 26 — The Department of Fisheries of Malaysia (DOF) has revealed that six rivers in the Klang Valley are now monopolised by foreign fish species, including ikan bandaraya (Amazon sailfin catfish), black tilapia, and keli Afrika (African catfish).
The rivers include Sungai Kuyoh, Sungai Klang, Sungai Keroh, Sungai Jinjang, Sungai Gombak, and Sungai Batu.
DOF director-general Datuk Adnan Hussain said the percentage is worrying as it could cause the development of ecosystem biodiversity in the rivers to stagnate.
“The actions of certain parties in releasing these foreign fish species (into the country’s waters) are not helpful because their actions cause the biodiversity of our local fish to decrease.
“Not only that, these fish also do not add much value to the national economy. If this is not stopped, it will lead to the extinction of local fish species in our waters,” he said.
Adnan was speaking during a press conference after officiating the Foreign Fish Hunting Programme with the Community in Sungai Kuyoh, Bukit Jalil today.
The programme is a collaboration between DOF and Komuniti Pemburu Ikan Bandaraya, government agencies, the private sector, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), and Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM).
He said the hunting of these species is aimed at balancing the ecosystem to ensure that the country’s river waters are safe to release local fish species.
Via the programme, over 600 foreign fish species weighing 400kg were caught within two hours.
“In today’s programme, where we cast fishing nets, we found that 99 per cent of the fish we caught were of foreign species. What is even more surprising is that throughout the two hours, we only caught two local fish species, namely ikan puyu (climbing perch).
“The biggest catch of ikan bandaraya caught today weighed over 1kg while the keli afrika weighed 4kg,” Adnan said.
— Bernama
