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Six-foot dolphin found washed at Gorai beach

According to locals, the dolphin's carcass had badly decomposed and was found far from the stretch of the beach frequented by tourists. After BMC and forest department officials were informed, they reached the spot and removed the carcass.

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The carcass of the six-foot Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin that was found by a resident of Gorai village on Tuesday morning
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A resident from Gorai village found a six-foot Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin washed ashore on Tuesday morning.

According to locals, the dolphin's carcass had badly decomposed and was found far from the stretch of the beach frequented by tourists. After BMC and forest department officials were informed, they reached the spot and removed the carcass.

"We were on our regular round of the beach around 11am when an overpowering stench came our way. When we went close to the location, we found the carcass. A lot of people were already there," said Loyvain Henriques, a Gorai village resident.

According to him, around 1pm, BMC and forest department officials came and removed the carcass.

Chief conservator of forests and head of the Mangrove Cell N Vasudevan said they suspect the dolphin had got entangled in a fishing net and was dragged as there were marks of nets on its body. "Many times, dolphins get stuck in nets and get dragged ashore. We have sent its samples to the Bombay Veterinary College for autopsy and will get a detailed report soon," he said.

Pradeep Patade, founder of Ocean Conservation Education Awareness Network who has been studying the marine biodiversity around Mumbai, said the spotting of dolphins has become extremely common around Mumbai harbour and such deaths are extremely worrying.

"Dolphins get entangled in fishing nets as they commonly come to feed around these nets, the problem is that to get them out either the fisherman has to cut the net, which they don't as these nets are costly, or to pull them out, which again is not possible as its alive and struggling to free itself. So the fisherman has no option but to drag it back to the shore and by that time it dies," he said, adding that a number of times fishermen themselves bring back the dolphins to the shore and bury them or just leave them in shallow waters from where they were washed ashore during tides.

Patade said that in 2015 itself there were around five cases of dolphin carcasses being found in various areas, including Malabar Hill, Vasai, Versova and Nariman Point. "A lot of awareness needs to be created amongst the fishing community and some measures to help these dolphins have to be found out through research," he said.

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