A large number of local and regional media representatives attended today’s conference on the occasion of the end of the campaign for selective fishing of Lake Palic invasive fish species. The conference was opened by Hajnalka Bognar Pastor, a member of Subotica City Council, in charge of agriculture. She emphasized that she was glad that this project was successfully getting close to its completion but that it would be good as well if it could continue in a new and different form for the sake of environmental and lake preservation.
As Marta Dobo, the director of the PE Palic-Ludas, announced, the initial quantity estimate for babushka in Sector IV of the lake was around 120 tons, which turned out to be wrong. “If we add up everything we have taken out in the past years, it already makes 190 tons. Next week we will complete selective fishing for this year, but we will continue to carry out selective fishing in the coming years. According to the plan and program for this year, restocking will follow until the end of the year,” Dobo pointed out.
About 89 tons of fish were caught at Lake Palic in the latest selective fishing campaign of invasive fish species from the lake, i.e. from September 1st until today, most of which are silver carp, so-called bašuška. The end of this year’s selective fishing campaign is scheduled for the next week, that is, the first week of November.
Vinko Tamas, the expert associate for the nature protection in the PE Palic-Ludas, explained that they would initially implement frugal and gradual restocking in all sectors of the lake. In addition to that, they will be doing the monitoring to determine how it has affected the qualitative and quantitative fish stock composition.
“Restocking is very important because there has been no restocking in our lakes for more than 10 years. There was a problem of water quality and also the invasive fish species. So, now we realise that it is a good time to start restocking again,” Tamas explained. He added that other positive effects of the project were visible, “The population of invasive fish species has decreased. We were mostly catching babushka only, while the American brown bullhead, common sunfish, and Chinese rasbora are in very small quantities, i.e. maybe only a few kilograms per 100 to 150 kilograms, and some others even less. What is important is to increase the number of indigenous species. We were mostly catching sander (pikeperch), but there were also carp, pike, common perch, bream and common rudd, which we immediately returned to the water. Yet, by doing the restocking, we will improve it even more.“
According to Marko Stojčić, a deputy project manager for the “Biodiversity and Water Protection Lake Palic and Lake Ludas “, the results show that the situation in the lake is much better than it was in the previous years. “The results of the project show that almost 100 tons of babushka were caught in less than two months, and furthermore, an extremely large amount of healthy specimens of sander (pikeperch) and other indigenous species was returned to the lake, which shows that the situation in the lake is better than in previous years. We expect and rightly hope that this will continue in the coming period. In addition to fishing, there are ongoing scientific researches. Water temperature and turbidity are being read at each location where the net is set. So, all these parameters will be analyzed in the coming period, and we will have a clear picture of what is happening in the lake, “Stojcic concluded.
