Endangered dolphins are poached mercilessly

Large-scale poaching of dolphins along Uttara Kannada’s Kumta stretch is pushing them to extinction. Thousands of dolphins caught by fishermen on the Kumta-Panaji stretch, which is also known as India’s dolphin coast, are ending up in the fish markets of Kumta, Ankola, Karwar, and Canacona.

What’s disturbing is the fact that the catch that ends up on restaurant menus and dinner plates in the area includes the rare bottlenose dolphin, which has been categorised as endangered species by the World Wildlife Fund. Their numbers, according to experts, have dropped drastically in India over the past few years.

With the marine stock already exhausted in nearby waters, fishermen along the stretch are reaching out for these dolphins whose meat and oil is quite popular with tourists, especially foreigners, and locals.

According to the 1972 Forest Act, the bottlenose dolphin has been classified as a schedule I animal. Its poaching is an offence punishable with imprisonment of three to seven years and a fine of Rs25,000, or both. These dolphins, because of their friendly nature, often swim close to the fishing nets. According to Vijaya Kumar, deputy conservator of forests (Mangalore range), most fishermen along the Konkan coast don’t know their nature and hunt them down.

To make matters worse, the fishermen know little or nothing about the wildlife act. “The dolphins swim along with other fish like mackerel, sardine, seer and pompfret, and often land up in the nets,” Pramod Tandel, a fisherman in Tadadi, near Karwar, pointed out.

“They get killed accidentally. We hand them over to other fishermen from Tamil Nadu and Kerala, who sell them to tourists for Rs2,000-2,500 depending on the size of the catch,” Tandel added. But poaching is widespread, say the greens.

The environment experts blame it on the lack of monitoring. “It’s shocking and disturbing. We will take up the matter with the fisheries department. There is an urgent need for the government to identify dolphin sanctuaries and have stricter conservation laws against poaching,” Ananth Hegde Ashisar, who heads the Uttara Kannada NGO for dolphin protection, said.

Joint director of marine fisheries, Uttara Kannada coast, Gangadhar Maddikeri said the poaching was disturbing. He has asked his department to start an awareness campaign against the practice and urge people to stop buying dolphin meat. The bottlenose, which is among the 32 different varieties of dolphins seen  in India, is largely found in the Arabian Sea. The other endangered species of dolphins is the Ganges River dolphin, which is a freshwater mammal.