The Logic Behind Carp Stocking
Indian reservoir fisheries management through the mid-twentieth century operated on a straightforward premise: large, fast-growing species convert plankton and detritus into harvestable protein faster than most native fish. Catla catla, the surface-feeding column dweller, and Cirrhinus mrigala, the bottom-grazing detritivore, were selected precisely because they occupied different feeding zones and did not obviously compete with each other. Rohu, Labeo rohita, completed the trinity. Stocking these three across the Hirakud, Nagarjunasagar, Tungabhadra, and dozens of smaller impoundments was framed as productivity enhancement, not ecological intervention.
