Bangladesh’s national fish is becoming a luxury on the plate. Catches are falling, fish are getting smaller, and prices are climbing beyond the reach of many consumers.
The hilsa craze that has gripped Bangladesh since the 1990s is beginning to fade. Even at the height of the season, prices are so steep that many buyers hesitate after hearing the asking price. Without a healthy wallet, buying hilsa has become a distant dream.
Retailers, wholesalers and experts warn that hilsa could become increasingly scarce unless urgent measures are taken.
At Karwan Bazar wholesale market, where prices are generally lower than retail markets, a 1.2kg hilsa is selling for Tk3,500 during the peak season. A 700-gram fish costs Tk2,000, while smaller hilsa are selling at Tk1,700 per kg.
Wholesaler Jamir Kuddus said they have little choice but to charge higher prices as fish arrive from landing stations at elevated rates.
“I have never seen such a shortage during this period before,” he said, adding that prices are unlikely to fall soon.
Md Manik Chand, a wholesaler from Chandpur — known as the “capital of hilsa” — told TIMES of Bangladesh that supply has fallen sharply.
“This year, supply has fallen to one-third of last year’s level. Fish are not even being caught in fishermen’s nets,” he said.
According to him, a 1.2kg hilsa is selling at Tk2,800 per kg in Chandpur.
A decline years in the making
Data from the Department of Fisheries shows the fall in hilsa production is part of a continuing trend.
The country produced 571,000 tonnes of hilsa in the 2022-23 fiscal year. Production fell to 529,000 tonnes the following year and declined further to 500,000 tonnes in FY25. Figures for the latest fiscal year are yet to be finalised.
Before 2022, however, hilsa production had been rising.
In July 2020, the government launched a six-year, Tk229 crore project titled the “Hilsa Resource Development and Management” project to increase production by 53,000 tonnes and improve fish size.
Despite the investment, questions remain over its impact. Production has declined, while the average size of hilsa has also shrunk from 500-550 grams six years ago to 300-400 grams now.
Experts say the shrinking size holds the key to the crisis.
Hilsa first develops eggs at eight to nine months of age when it weighs around 300-400 grams. But it takes nearly two years to become a mature fish weighing 800-900 grams.
Excessive fishing pressure means many hilsa are being caught during their first breeding cycle before they can grow. As a result, smaller fish dominate markets while large hilsa have become rare.
Three stages of destruction
Wholesaler Jamir Kuddus describes the crisis as a three-stage destruction process.
First, tiny fish are caught with fine-mesh nets and sold locally as “chapila”. Those that survive are later caught by larger-mesh current nets.
The jatka that reach the sea then face large trawlers and banned behundi nets.
“After passing through these three stages, hilsa no longer gets the opportunity to grow,” Kuddus said.
Molla Emdadullah, former project director of the Hilsa Resource Development and Management project, shares a similar assessment.
He said the main stock of hilsa is in the sea, but government conservation efforts remain focused mainly on rivers.
When jatka migrate from rivers to the sea between late April and May, they are caught freely there. New-generation trawling boats using engines and trawl doors are also catching large quantities of fish, including juveniles.
Almost all government initiatives — mother hilsa protection, jatka conservation and combing operations — are river-based. According to Emdadullah, sea-based conservation measures have become essential.
Weak enforcement, changing rivers
Monitoring is also limited by a lack of resources.
Hilsa-rich areas cover 400 kilometres across 20 districts, with 138 fishing spots. Yet only 19 large mechanised speedboats are available for river patrols.
Md Abdullah Al Mahmud, assistant fisheries officer in Shariatpur, told TIMES, “It has become difficult to control fishing vessels using powerful engines with ordinary boats. As a result, even though laws exist, the capacity to enforce them at the field level remains limited.”
Sedimentation has created new chars, disrupting hilsa migration routes, nursery grounds and breeding areas. Pollution has added to the challenge, reducing the suitability of habitats in the Padma-Meghna system.
Professor Shamsul Alam of Bangladesh Agricultural University said government funding for hilsa research has been unavailable for the past decade.
“Genome preservation was necessary to understand changes in hilsa, but it was never done. As a result, it has now become difficult to research why production is suddenly declining,” he said.
However, Shariatpur fisheries officer Abdullah Al Mahmud cautioned against drawing conclusions too early.
“The abundance of hilsa is not a completely fixed phenomenon. Before breeding, hilsa naturally move from the sea to rivers in larger numbers, and their abundance may begin increasing 15 to 20 days before Ashwin. Therefore, the entire season cannot be judged based only on low catches during a specific period,” he said.
