DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE

Department of Fisheries & Aquaculture is one of the three Departments within the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences & Technology, which conducts the courses related to all fields of Fisheries and Aquaculture for undergraduates who register for the BSc Honours in Fisheries and Marine Sciences Degree programme and the BSc Honours in Marine and Freshwater Sciences Degree programme. The course modules have been designed targeting the needs of the country and considering the demands of the relevant industries. Facilities within the Department are utilised to develop soft skills of the students, and the students are provided with opportunities to get the hands on experience in the field, national research stations, and at aquaculture and fishery related industries. This is done through well organised field excursions, out door and laboratory practical classes, and industrial training, which are integrated components of most of the course modules. In addition to the undergraduate teaching, academics of the Department are involved in various nationally and internationally important activities such as research, consultancies, secondary and tertiary curriculum development in collaboration with National Institute of Higher Education, community training and awareness programmes, etc. The current research areas handled by the staff are in the fields of Biodiversity of fish in different aquatic systems; Biology, ecology, distribution and population dynamics of fish; Feeding and nutrition of fish; Culture of fin-fish and shell-fish relevant to ornamental and food fish industry, Impact of climate change on reproductive performance of fish; Breeding success of carps in natural lakes, Ichthyoplankton in marine coastal waters, Community-based fisheries management of coastal fisheries, and marine ornamental fisheries and value addition to fish and fishery products in ornamental and food-fish industry. In addition to the above academic staff has been instrumental in helping the graduates pass out from the faculty to find prestigious opportunities for postgraduate studies at foreign universities and in local universities.

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT	CONTACTS
Dr. S S Herath [ Senior Lecturer ] B.Sc. (Hons) in Fisheries Biology (Ruhuna, SL) M.Sc. (AIT, Thailand) PhD (Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, Japan)	Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences & Technology University of Ruhuna Wellamadama Matara (81000) Sri Lanka +94(0) 41 2516100 | +94(0) 2222681 - ext 16100 E-mail: sakunthala@fish.ruh.ac.lk