In the Department of Agricultural Research, fisheries is at present attached to the Animal Husbandry Branch and is managed by one technical officer who is basically an agricultural graduate (agronomist), trained in Japan in inland fisheries for a period of seven months. There is one experienced fisherman, also attached to the Fisheries Division and working in Wadi Yabis. No one with any basic education in fishery science is available either in the department or in the country.
Six Dubisch-type 1 carp breeding ponds, (50 m2 each), two nurseries, each 1 000 m2 in area and one cement cistern, 132 m2 in area, are in use at Wadi Yabis in the Jordan Valley. The cistern is used for keeping breeder stock of carps and is fed by a small local spring. The spawning ponds and nurseries depend on the Ghor canal for water supply. All the ponds are subject to heavy seepage.
Three large ponds, each 4 000 m2 in area, constructed near the nurseries have been in disuse for the last six to seven years, because of heavy seepage, and are now overgrown with weeds.
A small cement tank of about 7.5 m2 in area, constructed by the department in 1966, in a privately owned plot in Sukhneh, for initiating experiments on intensive cultivation of carp in running water, is now used for keeping a stock of carp breeders.
No other field facilities are provided by the Government. At the Agricultural Research and Extension Department at Jubeiha, where the fisheries research officer is stationed, neither office accommodation nor laboratory facilities are provided. However, when required, analysis of soil or water samples is carried out at the chemistry laboratory in the department, or at the laboratories of the Water Resources Authority.
An experiment on intensive cultivation of carp in running water, initiated in December 1967 and continued up to February 1969 (14 months), in a specially constructed cement tank at Sukhneh, gave a harvest of 883 kg of marketable carp (average weight just over 1 kg), representing an approximate average production of about 120 kg/m2/13 months and a food conversion ratio of 2.8:1 (feed: fish flesh). No further production experiments were conducted in this pond afterwards and the pond has since been used as a stock pond for breeders only.
Breeding of carp is carried out every year during April-May. The Dubisch method of spawning is adopted. Several pairs of spawners are introduced in each pond and after spawning they are removed. Eggs hatch in the spawning ponds and fry are removed to nurseries about a month or longer after spawning. The total production of fry and fingerlings has been approximately as follows:
| 1965 | - | 6 000 |
| 1966 | - | 3 000 |
| 1967 | - | 10 000 |
| 1968 | - | 6 000 |
| 1969 | - | 8 000 |
| 1970 | - | 7 000 |
| 1971 | - | 18 000 |
The present stock of spawners kept at Wadi Yabis and at Sukhneh is as follows:
five-year-olds; about 200 specimens, 3 to 10 kg, and averaging 5 kg in weight;
two-year-olds; about 80 specimens only; yet to mature; averaging 800 g in weight.
Confined to and crowded in relatively very small ponds and subsisting on artificial feed, these specimens are not in too healthy a condition.
About 5 000 fingerlings of the 1971 stock, averaging about 100 g in weight, are held in one of the nursery ponds at Wadi Yabis.
At Ziglab, in the Ghor area, Mr. Abdul Majeed has constructed a series of three cement tanks, diverting the flow of a local freshwater spring through them. One tank, about 200 m2 in area, was stocked with 4 000 carp fingerlings in July 1971 and these have, by April 1972, grown to an average weight of 600 g. The stock is artificially fed. Occasional harvesting of better grown specimens has started, but no production figures are yet available.
At Sukhneh, Mr. Hamdan Dabaj has constructed a series of six cement tanks, each 7 × 3 × 1.75 m, and water from the Sukhneh spring is diverted to flow through these tanks. Three of the tanks have been stocked with about 1 000 carp fingerlings each. No regular feeding has been initiated and no production figures are available.
Another prospective fish farmer, Hajee Hussain, has recently constructed a series of five cement tanks at Sukhneh. The tanks are 20 to 25 m2 in area each and the water flow from the spring is diverted through them. Fish culture work is yet to be initiated in these tanks.
At Azraq-Druze, two cement tanks, each about 50 m2 in area, have been constructed by Mr. Mansoor Bassar, diverting water from Druze to flow through them. No stocking has yet been done in these ponds.
No other organized attempt at fish culture is apparent, though several individuals have been approaching the department for details regarding construction of ponds for fish culture.
Ziglab irrigation reservoir was nominally stocked with 700 carp and 100 tilapia fingerlings in 1966. Thereafter, no attempt has been made to develop this resource in any manner. The other two reservoirs, Shueib and Kafrein, also remain unstocked and unexploited.
