During the past few years there has been an inorease in the fishing
effort of the small mesh gill net fishery in Negombo and Chilaw
areas. There are also indications that the stocks of the Amblygaster
sirm (Clupeida) which is the dominant species in this fishery are
gradually depleting. The present study was therefore initiated to
identify the Ao sirm stocks in these two areas.
Material was collected from the small mesh gill net fishery in these
two areas and the morphometric measurments were taken in the laboratory.
The slope of the linear regressions between the standard length and
the morphometric characters were compared by an analysis of convariance
oarried out with the help of a micros tat programme on an Apple II e
micro computer. The results showed that there were no significant
difference between the slopes of the linear regression for Negombo and
Chilaw. This indicated that the same stock of Amblygaster sirm is fished
by small mesh gillnetters in Negombo and Chilaw areas.