Beloved Tisreo (clams) of Goa are in danger, so…

We all love a good tisreo dish. However, are we harming the tisreo supply?

To protect tisreo (clams) as their population is decreasing, the Goa State Biodiversity Board (GSBB) has put some measures in place. They have recommended extracting the clams by traditional hand-picking.

Also, villagers/ locals who are within a 5-km radius of the shellfishes’ site will be allowed to extract them. Any outsider will have to get permission from the local bodies. This is because the indifferent extraction of young shellfish has endangered their breeding process.

To let them breed, the months from July to October will be the ‘closed season’. These months are their peak breeding time.

There are many villages in Goa that are lamenting the loss of oysters (kalvam), tisreo, and the endangered window pane oyster (menddio). Often, crowds of visitors who are more numerous than the locals go to the riverbeds and keep digging and taking out the shell creatures.

There is hope that these new guidelines will help give a better livelihood to the fishing community and get the shellfish population back up.

(Image used for representational purpose only)

Planet Goa Team

For us at Planet-Goa, our team is driven by that feeling of exhilaration that one gets when discovering that something ‘unique’ and ‘new’ about Goa for our ever-so-discerning readers.