Experiments on Fishing Net Preservation

Abstract

IT is common knowledge that fishing nets deteriorate either while in use
or in storage. The weakening of fibres of the fishing nets is caused by physical
wear and tear, bacterial infection, action of organic matter like the
fish slime, dead fish, etc., and temperature (Whiteleather, R. T. and
Brown, H. H., 1945). All methods of preservation of fishing nets
are meant to slow down the processes of deterioration. The Indian
fishermen since ages are known to keep their fishing gears in good
condition as long as possible, by treating them with some form of vegetable
matter like the fruits, the nuts, the leaves and the barks of several trees.
Though considerable progress has been made in other countries in the manufacture
of net preservatives on a commercial scale and in the study of their
advantageous application to diflferent types of fishing gears, no systematic
work has been done in India and other tropical countries, even on a study
of the vast resources of vegetable products in different forms available in
large quantities and used in diflferent parts of the country, the methods of
preservation adopted in each case, how far the nets become strengthened
by the application of these preservatives, the preserving qualities of each
preservative, etc. Attempts have been made, therefore, in these series of
experiments for a study of the above details and to observe how far they
 compare with the preservatives used in other parts of the world.