Protein content in the muscle of fish Schizothorax esocinus from Dal and Manasbal Lakes of Kashmir, Himalaya

Schizothorax esocinus (Churru) Heckel, 1838 a key freshwater species in the valley of Kashmir is witnessing a threatened status due to various intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The present study was conducted to evaluate the variations in protein content from the fish muscle tissue from the two lakes of Kashmir valley. The results revealed that the protein content of fish species was in the range of 0.7926–1.3720 mg/ml for Dal Lake and 0.7487–1.2113 mg/ml for Manasbal Lake respectively. The results indicate that the protein content of the fish depends to a great extent on the quality of food, season, and reproductive cycle. A specific pattern in the muscle protein was observed in the study. The results indicated that irrespective of the site, the concentration of protein did not show much variation at an in traspecific level.