The investigation was carried out to provide an overview of the current resources and fisheries status of the Surma River and existing fisheries management strategies, especially focusing on fish diversity and conservation. Surma River is one of the largest aquatic ecosystems of Bangladesh and support huge amount of diverse fisheries communities. A monthly fish catch survey was carried out from March to August 2017 in the three most important catchment areas of Sylhet district; namely, Kushighat, Kanishailghat and Tuker bazar. It was completed by questionnaire interviews of fishers, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and secondary data collection. A total of 16 different types of fishing gears were identified from the study area. Among these 7 lift net, 1 dip net, 2 gill net, 2 seine net, 1 push net, 1 cast net and 2 hook and line were identified. The highest gear efficiency (0.77±0.06 kg.gear–1.h–1.person–1) from thela jal (Push net) in August and lowest (0.167±0.03 kg.gear–1.h–1.person–1) from jimti jal (Lift net) in March were recorded. A total of 18 sampling stations identified 53 fish species under 8 orders and 21 families, including prawns. Cyprinidae was the leading family consisting of 34% of the total fish population. The Shannon-Weaver diversity index (H’) was found uppermost (2.68) in August and lowermost (2.14) in May. Margalef richness index (D) was found maximum (4.86) in June and minimum (1.62) in March. Contrariwise, Pielou’s evenness index (e) was highest (0.98) in March and lowest (0.61) in May. However, richness index varied significantly different in all the month except in July and August (P
Key words: Biodiversity loss, Surma River, Fish biodiversity, Gear efficiency, Management strategies
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