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The tigers are disappearing, elephants are falling to poachers.
But apart from the high-profile animals, what’s happening
to the lesser known endangered species, like sharks and dolphins?
Ranjita Biswas reports
The tiger has been in the news lately for the scandalous
depletion in its number or disappearance altogether from some
sanctuaries in the land of Royal Bengal Tiger; lions too have
featured prominently, for a reverse reason– an increase
in population and even making them move beyond the Gir sanctuary
in search of food. But some other wildlife in the endangered
list, especially from the sea, often go unnoticed even though
they are rampantly poached.
That is, until they make a splash like recently in West Bengal
when 14 fishermen were arrested in Namkhana in the Sunderbans
area after 41 sharks were found stashed away in their trawlers.
According to Atanu K. Raha, chief conservator of forests,
WB, “This is for the first time that shark poachers have
been caught in this region.” In India, sharks are on
the Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, making
their killing illegal.
That the fish is regularly killed in the Sunderbans is one
of the worst kept secrets among the fishing community. What
made people in general sit up this time was the revelation
that the meat is often supplied to restaurants and markets
in Kolkata passing it off as the Bhetki variety, much sought
after by the fish-loving Bengalis for preparing the gourmet
‘Fish Fry’ dish.
One wonders if this certain information has made it more
of a scandal for city dwellers who have cried foul. It is
certainly a discovery for many that the species, often associated
with the hugely popular film Jaws, is in the endangered list
and not all sharks are in the killer mould. Rather humans
are more dangerous to them.
Recalls Dr A.N.Ghosh, director, Centre for Environment and
Development (CED) , a Kolkata-based NGO, “Even fifteen
years or so ago we witnessed while on work in the Andamans
(he is ex-director of the Zoological Survey of India), regular
fishing of the shark. The boat owners were all from Tamil
Nadu and the boatmen from Andhra, who are very skilled. The
dinghies employed were basic but these fishermen caught huge
hauls. As soon they landed, they were weighed with Spring
Balances and then dismembered . Every part of the shark comes
to some use - the fins for the delicacy of the shark fin soup,
the oil, bones for the bone marrow powder etc. The customers
were often from neighbouring countries from across the sea.”
India, together with Indonesia and the Philippines, is one
of the major sources for shark fins. Ghosh speculates on how
much killing of this kind in the 7,500 kilometer long coastline
of the country could be going on.
The apprehension is not ill-founded. Two scuba diving surveys
in 2001, one by Reefwatch Marine Conservation and Sanctuary
(magazine), and the other by a United Nations Development
Project (UNDP)-Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) team, revealed
that shark populations had drastically gone down in the seas
surrounding the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The poachers
were mainly from Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. Often they
cut off the sharks' fins and threw the fishes back into the
sea carelessly to die an agonising death.
Shark fin soup though a delicacy in the South East Asia and
China have come into attack by conservationists for quite
a long time. An international airline from that area had to
take off its menu after protests from passengers. Why can’t
it be done in this country too? Raha informed that among the
new measures introduced after the recent incident, is notifications
to the restaurants in the city that using parts of prohibited
animals is illegal and if caught, severe punishment would
be meted out.
For sometime now, he informs, sensitizing programmes have
been launched by the forest department among fishermen community
and general public about how endangered species can be further
damaged by humans. “We’ve printed thousands of posters
for distribution in Namkhana and Kakdwip, the landing areas
for fish hauls. We’ve also involved local NGOs and launched
sensitisation programmes among the forest department staff
to make them more vigilant. In fact, the current detection
happened due to more vigilance.
Another endangered species that has been on the decline are
the river dolphins, sishu or sishuk in local parlance. Amitav
Ghosh in his novel The Hungry Tide, set in the Sunderbans,
has etched the main female character of Piyali Roy as a cetologist,
tracking rare river dolphins at the estuary of the Ganga and
brings alive the travails of the beloved fish which was once
so common in this area but now disappearing fast. Dolphin
too is in the Schedule I of Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act
and has been declared an endangered species under the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
In West Bengal, the existence of river dolphins was first
reported by Anderson in 1878. Even in the 1960s sishus were
a common sight in the Ganga and the Brahmaputra river in Assam
but today their number has dwindled.
The Gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica) is one of the
only four freshwater dolphin species in the world. The other
three are found in the Yangtze river of China (Baiji) , the
Indus in Pakistan and Latin America -Boto in the Amazon and
Franciscana in the La Plata river. Freshwater dolphins are
in trouble all over the world , according to the World Wide
Fund for Nature (WWF) which launched the campaign to save
river dolphins in India. Its habitat is affected by industrial
and agricultural development. Increasing use of pesticides
in agricultural lands means they drain out to the river and
the water quality deteriorates. Synthetic fishing nets also
sound a death knell to the dolphins. As a species dolphins
live on smaller fishes . River dolphins have poor eyesight
and their echo signals while moving under water in search
of food often leads them to the nets. According to Dr R.K.
Sinha, head of the Zoology department, Patna University and
a specialist in the field, poaching has all but wiped out
the river dolphins from the Sone river in Bihar. The stretch
between Buxar in central Bihar , and Rajmahal in Jharkhand
is the most dangerous for the dolphin. The oil of the dolphin
is a prized item.
The country’s first dolphin sanctuary, the Vikramshila
Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary, was set up in Bihar in 1991. But
even from these areas killing of dolphins are reported. Such
a proposal to set up a dolphin sanctuary has also been forwarded
by CED to the WB fisheries department in 2004 after it conducted
a survey titled “Status of Gangetic river dolphin and
its habitat in lower Ganges and other river systems in West
Bengal” in 2002 on behalf of WWF and Wildlife Institute
of India.
Though West Bengal has sanctuaries for elephants, rhinos,
tigers, snow leopards etc. the IUCN Red data listed (most
endangered) dolphin is yet to have a sanctuary in the state,
Ghosh observes.
The exact figures in the West Bengal river system is not
known since no concerted surveys have been done for sometime.
There was a proposal to undertake one such in the Sunderbans
in March, 2003 by the US-based World Conservation Society
in collaboration with a local wildlife NGO. But it was stalled
in the last moment as there was some hassle regarding clearance
from the external ministry in this sensitive international
border area.
Asked if the state wildlife department has any such plan,
Raha says, “Our staff are now well-trained to undertake
dolphin surveys. We’re planning to conduct a survey on
dolphins and crocodiles in the beginning of 2006 .We’ll
also take help from our counterpart in Orissa who are experts
in this field.”
And it will be no sooner. Man’s greed and insensitivity
have already made many species in the water disappear forever.
Will it be the turn of the lovely sishu now?
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