BFAR helps catfish farmers contain bullfrog-infestation

DAVAO CITY – The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) is training a community of catfish (hito) growers fight a bullfrog infestation that has threatened their livelihood for months in the industry town of Los Amigos, this city.

The training involves a non-lethal integrated pest management system that prevents the entry of the bullfrogs into the hectares of catfish farms in the area, located around one and a half hours from the city's downtown.

Production in catfish farms has dropped by 90 percent in 2017, according to reports from the BFAR, largely blamed on the bullfrog infestation which has been reported as early as January 2017.

BFAR is currently training the catfish farmers to create a net barricade enough to prevent the bullfrogs from jumping into the fish farms.

It provided fish net nylons and polyethylene rope worth R650,000 as funding for fencing materials for the fish fry production areas.

In the earlier request to the BFAR, farmers identified around 150 beneficiaries of the project, and the number has grown over the months to around 210 farmers.

The invasive species have caused an alarming drop in catfish production for 2017.

Veterinarian My Lady Rose C. Domingo, who introduced the technology among his peers prior to the official request to the fisheries agency, said that the daily demand in the Los Amigos catfish areas at the highway alone was around one ton daily.

The Los Amigos catfish has turned into an industry, with the barangay annually celebrating a Hito Festival.

Raul Millana, chief of fisheries support at BFAR XI, said that the program was specifically designed to be nonlethal for the bullfrogs as they were part of the ecosystem's food chain.

Millana also said that the city, the Department of Agriculture and the BFAR were planning to hold a Hito Summit alongside the annual hito festival.

The city's hito production is being identified as a massive industry, despite not being included as among the primary commodities supported by the agriculture bureau.

Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, in a message read by representatives from the City Agriculturist's Office, thanked the BFAR and asked that the farmers take care of the materials.

Catfish is a primary commodity along the busy Davao-Bukidnon Road, with stalls offering various recipes of catfish to the captive audience of travelers and tourists with a hankering for the fish product.