A TALE ABOUT THE CAPTURED BLUE MARLIN

Good morning dear friends of Steem Geography and every Steemian here present. I'm here this morning to share a curious but true story about a Blue Marlin fish that was captured recently in Warri, a town bordering the Atlantic ocean in Delta State of the NIGER-DELTA region of Nigeria.

The above photograph was sent to me via WhatsApp by a friend of mine who lives in Warri. To start with I'll love to inform you my readers that I am by profession a Fisheries Officer working with the Fisheries Department of the Delta State Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources. So I see that it was with good reason my friend sent me this picture believing that as a Fisheries Officer I might be concerned about the circumstances at the origin of this photograph.

His narrative was that, a local artisanal fisher folk had hooked this one in at the shores of the Atlantic. Being without formal education he had no knowledge of the economic or ecological relevance of his strange catch. All he was satisfied with was that it was a big catch. So he had simply hauled his catch inlands to the tumultuous cheers of his uninformed relatives and they had made a feast out of this rare Atlantic species of fish.

The fisherman with his Blue Marlin after hauling it into the village.

Hadn't it been for a few persons in possession of a smart phone, this unusual event would have escaped the notice of most people whom actually understand the implication of this phenomenon. Had they as an enlightened group of fisherfolk knew what they were dealing with, I believe they could have made a better outcome of the whole situation than just stuffing their stomachs with a very expensive, vulnerable and threatened Atlantic species of marine wildlife.

The Blue Marlin is a rare and very expensive fish. This catch is probably worth tens of thousands of dollars. Had the fisherman known it's true worth I think he wouldn't mind fasting and abstaining from Marlin meat for the rest of his life to just have the cash value instead in his bank account.

Knowing that this was a threatened species of fish, a man concerned with the preservation of endangered and vulnerable species of wildlife would have released it back into the wild and rather take home a net full of the more abundant and less endangered species of fish.

From the above we can safely conclude that a little sensitization on the economic and ecological value of the vulnerable species of marine wildlife will help prevent most of our uneducated fisherfolk from making the same mistakes the fisherman whom hooked in the Blue Marlin made. This can be done by ways of seminars and townhall talks organized by the relevant government agencies and eco-friendly NGOs.

Being that this is not the first true tale of strange encounters between wildlife and man emanating from Nigeria as evidenced by past true tales of beach-stranded whales and marine species being butchered alive on the Atlantic coast of Nigeria in recent times it leaves one convinced that much work needs to be done among the Nigerian population about the far-reaching relevance of the conservation of wildlife species. Thanks for your time reading and please take no offense at how saddened this tale of the captured Blue Marlin has left you.

CC @belenguerra
CC @bright-obias

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