Domestication of Mahseer (Tor soro) in Indonesia

Mahseer is an economically important fish in the world with a distribution from the Himalayan Mountains up to Southeast Asia. One species of Masheer is Tor soro in the Indonesian Archipelago. For a long time, T. soro has been collected from the wild and now is becoming rare. In addition, the degradation of its habitat is another problem. Hence, it is urgent that this species is saved from extinction. Domestication of T. soro from North Sumatra has been conducted since 1996. This paper reports the results of domestication of T. soro starting from collecting live specimens, genetic and morphometric characterizations, evaluation to breeding, and growing out. In 2010, domestication was successful to produce a second generation of young broodstocks and now the breeding technology is being shared with several provinces where T. soro exist.