6 



less easy to collect in quantity and it was necessary to enlist the assistance of 

 the fishermen and villagers to scour the waterways for the quantities required. 

 For the first two years, the oystermen paid the villagers at the rate of Rs. 4 per 

 100 dozen. This price paid the collectors well for the first season ; during the 

 second it scarce sufficed for a bare living. At the beginning of the 1894-95 

 season oysters had become so reduced in numbers that the oystermen were 

 compelled to raise the rate of payment for collection to Us. 5 per 100 dozen. 

 Even this ceased to be remunerative after the first few weeks of the season, so 

 scarce were the oysters ; indeed so extreme was the difficulty experienced in 

 their collection in quantity that the majority of the men who had been employed 

 gave up the work in disgust in spite of the temptation of money advances 

 offered by the oyster dealers. 



24. Apart from the harm done by actual overfishing, a very serious abuse 

 came to light during this enquiry ; it was found that for greater convenience in 

 sorting as well as for personal comfort during cold weather, it had been cus- 

 tomary for the fishermen to load up their small boats (toneys) with oyster 

 clumps or clusters indiscriminately, transport them to some convenient place 

 near high water mark and there do the actual separation of marketable oysters 

 at leisure. This entailed great loss as the clumps removed consisted largely of 

 dead shells frequently bearing numbers of immature oysters ; when the former 

 were knocked off, the latter died from exposure, no effort being made to replace 

 this unsaleable material on the bed whence it came. As one fisherman justly 

 remarked, the men destroyed more than they removed, as the young ones thus 

 lost would have been ready for market the following season had they been 

 either replaced or left on the mother-bed. W The oysters selected were usually 

 kept in the channel adjacent to the fishermen's huts till the oyster dealer came 

 round to the village with his boat. 



The evidence given at this enquiry was considered to bear out fully the 

 Statements made regarding the perilous condition ot the oyster industry and the 

 imminence of permanent depletion unless safeguarding measures were at once 

 taken. Various regulations were suggested but all that was done in 1896 was 

 to close the beds during the hot weather and then upon their re-opening in 

 October to make sure by inspection of the cargoes brought into Karachi that no 

 under- sized oysters were taken to market. 



25. At this time Captain Shoplaud, an ardent Conchologist, happened to 

 be Port Officer at Karachi and this appears to have led the Commissioner to 

 request him to make a personal examination with a view to furnish further 

 suggestions regarding the measures most likely to lead to improvement in the 

 supply. 



26. The report was furnished in January 1897. It was couched in a most 

 optimistic key, the view being taken that the institution of an annual and 

 general close time from 15th April to 1st October for all the. beds and the 

 enforcement of a size limit would prove sufficient to restore prosperity to all the 

 beds save those at Nawa Nar and in the Kuranji ereek; for these latter he 

 suggested a preliminary closure of two years. No oysters under 2 inches or 

 over 6 inches in greatest length were to be fished. 



27. From the enquiries made, Captain Shopland was able to furnish the 

 following list of places in Sind whence oysters are obtained for the Karachi 

 market, viz. : 



Name of creek etc. 



Hab River 

 Karachi Harbour 

 Gizri (Kuranji) cree 

 Pili creek 

 Khucli creek 

 Kbai creek 

 K ban to creek 

 Pitiani creek 

 Dubba creek 

 Hajamro creek 



Total of beds 72 



what I saw of the proceedings of oyster collectors during my inspection last year, 

 I fully believe this to have been an important factor in depletion. 



