Regulating fluvial systems by dams, barrages and construction of inter-basin link canals, has severe impacts on fish populations across the world’s rivers. In India, all major fluvial systems are interrupted by a series of barriers. This includes small weirs to large dams and salt-water barriers preventing saline incursion to the estuarine lakes.

Original Source

The Western Ghats region of India is an area of exceptional freshwater biodiversity and endemism. Mahseer of the genus Tor are considered prized sport fishes of great cultural significance; nevertheless, they are threatened as a result of increasing anthropogenic stressors. In the River Cauvery, the mahseer community comprises a ‘blue-finned’ and an orange-finned, ‘hump-backed’ fish.

Use of threatened species in research – be it for taxonomy, biology or population studies, has always invoked much debate. As a result, the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) developed a set of guidelines entitled ‘IUCN Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction’ with special reference to scientific collecting of threatened species.

One of the major underlying causes for increased biological invasion is the growth and development of world markets facilitated through globalization, and the booming intercontinental trade of live flora and fauna.