Bihar tells districts not to eat strange fish riding Nepal floodwater

Bihar's Department of Dairy, Fisheries and Animal Resources issued an advisory on 1 September telling people not to buy, sell or eat "unfamiliar and unusual" fish taken from floodwater that has come down from Nepal. The note followed reports of giant, odd-looking catch in East and West Champaran, Gopalganj, Bagaha, Saran and Saharsa, and after some people fell ill.

The Kosi and Gandak both rise in Nepal. They swelled after the 26 August flood on the Bhotekoshi and carried debris, dead animals and fish out of ponds, lakes and hill streams. The department's point is contamination, not folklore. Fish that ride floodwater pass through sewage, carcasses and standing filth. Bacteria, viruses and fungi travel with them. Cooking does not always cancel that load if the fish sat in dirty water for days.

Fisheries Minister Nand Kishor Ram said the advisory covers catching as well as trade. Nepal Police have issued a similar warning on their side of the border. The Bihar text tells anyone with vomiting, severe diarrhoea, dizziness, stomach pain or breathing trouble after a meal of flood fish to go straight to the nearest primary health centre. Sightings are to be reported to the district fisheries officer. Rumours, the department said, should be ignored.

Sameer Kumar Sinha of the Wildlife Trust of India said most of the large fish turning up in the Gandak belt are likely Bagarius bagarius, the goonch catfish, called Gochita in parts of Bihar. Goonch is a known river fish, not an alien species. Size and a sudden appearance after a Himalayan flood are what made it look strange to people who do not fish that stretch. Identification still belongs to the department. The advisory says an unfamiliar fish is not safe merely because it resembles something sold in a regular market.

The public-health risk sits on top of a food-price risk. Flood weeks are when protein gets scarce and cheap catch looks like relief. That is exactly when a contaminated lot moves fastest through village markets. Telling people not to sell the fish is the harder half of the order. Enforcement will be local, uneven and late.

Bihar has lived with Kosi floods for generations. What is new is the source event: a high-mountain collapse that flushed a different mix of water, silt and biota into the plains in a few days. Dead fish floating in with that pulse are a sanitation problem before they are a curiosity. The department chose a blunt sentence rather than a species lecture. Do not eat it until someone who can name it says it is clean.

The same rivers will keep running dirty for days. The advisory does not expire on a date. It holds until floodwater drops and ordinary catch is back under ordinary inspection. Until then the cheap fish on a tarpaulin in Bettiah or Bagaha is the one the state has told people to walk past.