By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: A mysterious disease has plagued the largest species of local class of fish found in Chitral River in its segment starting from Shoghor on Lotkoh side to Arandu at a stretch of about 150 kilometers where it enters the Kunar province of Afghanistan.
The local people living in the villages of Drosh, Kalkatak and Jughoor told that they saw the diseased fish floating above the water as the dead fish does and this was quite a new occurrence for them which indicated outbreak of disease among fish in the water.
Sardar Abdur Rahman of Drosh told Chitral Times that he felt aghast when he noticed a large number of dead fishes floating over the water near his house when he was searching for the dead body of a boy who had drowned into the river.
He said that this was new not only for him but for the older people as well who were present there who said that they did never saw the large number of dead fish being flown by the river.
Mr. Rahman said that he noticed the dead fish floating over the river while searching for the dead body in the downstream villages of Jinjirate, Kalakatak, Mirkhani, Damil, Kauti and Arandu.
He said that residing near the river in Drosh town, he started observing the number of dead fish on daily basis and found it continued for months till the advent of winter season which is either due to the fact that the species has totally annihilated in the water or the disease has been controlled.
When the assistant director of fisheries in Chitral, Amin Jan was contacted, he confirmed the prevalence of the disease and said that the department has assembled the sample of infected fish from different points in the river from Shoghore to Arandu.
He said that the symptoms of the infected fish were lethargy, external hemorrhage at mouth, ventral and near pelvic fins while infected fish tended to rest at banks where the water current was slower than others.
Mr. Jan said that there were twenty two local species of fish found in Chitral river of which the species affected by the disease is known as snow trout with its zoological name as schizothoras plagiotomeis.
He said that it was not a species of trout but its pseudo name was snow trout which had the largest population density in the river of Chitral and it may reduce to minority as a result of the disease outbreak or it may face extinction.
He said that amazingly all other twenty species of the fish were totally free from the disease which cannot be given a specific name which is the gathering of the symptoms of different known diseases of fish.
Mr. Jan said that he had approached the higher authorities of his department with the proposal of sending teams of specialists to Chitral so that they may take samples of different parameters of the environment in the affected areas.
He said that the facilities of advanced and specialized study of fish diseases was available with the fisheries department of Punjab Government in Lahore while there was a need of diagnosis of the disease which may be bacterial or viral infection in nature.
