The pearl gourami (Trichogaster leeri), a rare freshwater fish that seems as if its scales were made out of glowing "pearls" when hit by sunlight, has become even harder to find. The ornamental fish used to be easy to find in the shallow waters of Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Coordinator of the Integrated Fishery Laboratory at Bung Hatta University in Padang, Yunaidi Basri, once attempted to search for the fish known in Indonesia as the sepat mutiara in a number of ornamental fish vendors in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java and Bali for three years, yet came up with absolutely nothing.
Yunaidi instead accidentally found the fish while searching for the forest snakehead in the waters and swamps of Riau. A fisherman then informed him that another fisherman once caught a pearl gourami in the Rangau River, also located in Riau. He asked fishermen near the river to gather as many pearl gourami as they could. In three months, they managed to gather 500 fish.
"But when we got back to Padang, only 200 fish survived, which were then cared for and kept in a laboratory in a special aquarium," he said.
Now, more than 100 pearl gourami are kept at the Integrated Fishery Laboratory at Bung Hatta University.
Along with his colleagues, Yunaidi hopes to be able to speed up the breeding process of the pearl gourami and other endangered fish. There are many factors that triggered the endangered status of these species, including the loss and destruction of their habitat due to palm oil plantations.