January 2022
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Asian Catfish Clarias batrachus a Threatened Species Needs to be Conserved for sustainability of Life: A Review Atrayee Dey Assistant Professor, Post Graduate Department of Zoology, Banwarilal Bhalotia college, Asansol. Email: adey40@gmail.com Abstract Asian freshwater walking catfish Clarias batrachus is popularly known as ‘magur’, an indigenous fish species in India. Recently the indigenous fish species is getting deteriorated. Culturing the magur is a challenging procedure since their seeds are unavailable. Along with this, huge mortality is observed in juvenile stage. The adult forms are also hugely exposed to certain factors such as, habitat destruction, introduction of invasive species (Clarias gariepinus), periods of drought, water pollution etc. All these factors made C. batrachus a threatened species. Being a suitable candidate of aquaculture, C. batrachus needs to be conserved as because, it has excellent nutritional profile and medicinal values. Various conservation strategies are to be acquired in order to counteract their extinction in Nature. Key Words: Clarias batrachus, magur, sustainability, threatened, extinction Introduction Fish plays a crucial role in human diet as it is rich in protein, high quality lipids, minerals and vitamins. Speedy rising of population globally demands ideal nutrition and for this reason aquaculture sector has become the most potent rather promising food producing sector that meet the nutritional deficiencies (Patil and Johri, 2016). Catfish is economically important group of fishes for its nutritional value, unique taste, and little bones (Debnath, 2011). In India, production of sufficient number of indigenous catfish is not made. Therefore, catfish holds high market demand, high market price and keeping all these in mind, presently, cultivation of catfish is getting attention.