House panel to question CPF as alien fish poses threat to domestic species

Move Forward Party MP Natcha Boonchai-insawat, who chairs the subcommittee in charge of investigating the source of the blackchin tilapia infestation, said CPF executives would be invited to testify on Thursday.

Earlier, the Department of Fisheries announced that it had detected blackchin tilapia, which originates from Africa, in the water resources of 13 provinces. The department has launched campaigns urging local people to catch and annihilate the alien fish for fear that it would annihilate local species.

Natcha said his panel, which is a subcommittee of the House committee on higher education, science and innovations, had learned that CPF had got approval from the fisheries department in 2006 to import some blackchin tilapia on the strict condition that it must not let the alien fish slip out into the natural water resources.

Natcha said CPF said it wanted to experiment mixed-breeding the blackchin tilapia with nile tilapia to improve the quality of nile tilapia.
Natcha said the actual import took place in 2010, but CPF later informed the department that the experiment had failed and the blackchin tilapia had all died.

Later on, there were reports that the alien fish were found in many parts of the country.

Natcha said his House panel would call for the complete report that CPF sent to the department.

He added that the department was checking the DNA of blackchin tilapia caught in six provinces. The House committee would like to see results of the DNA test to see whether they originated from the same source.

Natcha said the House panel also wanted the department to check the fish DNA against the DNA of the fish imported by CPF for the failed experiment.

Natcha said the blackchin tilapia infestation was very serious because the House panel had learned that the alien fish had slipped into a prawn farm in Bangkok’s Bang Khunthian district and eaten all the prawns, causing damage worth some 300,000 baht to the owner.