Marine Mammal Atlas Released

Shri Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Sciences today released Marine Mammal Atlas in a press conference in New Delhi.

Marine mammals such as whales, dolphins, porpoise and sea cow are important component of marine ecosystems. From the Indian Ocean, 26 species of marine mammals have been reported so far. Marine mammals are migratory in nature and play a key role in the marine food web. Many of them are highly intelligent and can be trained to perform different tasks. Incidental catches in fishing gear have drastically reduced the populations of these wonderful creatures of the world oceans. Considering their threatened status, many international bodies such as International Whaling Commission (IWC), United Nation’s Environment Programme (UNEP) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are taking measures to protect, conserve and manage the marine mammals. The IWC, in 1979, declared the Indian Ocean as a sanctuary for whales. Countries such as Canada, Hawaii and Thailand have developed benign ecotourism ventures on marine mammals found in their EEZ. However, information on the distributional patterns, species diversity, abundance and genetic diversity are scanty from the Indian EEZ.

Realising this, the Ministry of Earth Sciences initiated a programme during the 10th Plan period to gather detailed information on the marine mammals from the Indian EEZ and contiguous seas. The programme was coordinated by the Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology, an attached centre of MoES at Kochi. The project was executed by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi. Data and information on marine mammals from the Indian EEZ were gathered through sightings recorded from the Ministry’s Fishery and Oceanographic Research Vessel, FORV Sagar Sampada during the period 2003-2007 involving 750 days of cruising, 472 sightings and observations on 5632 individuals. These information were made use in the generation of the atlas on marine mammals from the Indian EEZ which depicts their distributional patterns, species composition, behaviour and molecular taxonomy for species level identification.

This is the first comprehensive study on marine mammals from the Indian EEZ which will help us to understand these curious animals of the oceans, the role they play in the food web of the marine ecosystems, their migratory routes and aggregations. Besides, meeting our international obligations on the protection and conservations of marine mammals, it is possible to develop profitable benign ecotourism ventures surrounding these intelligent and friendly creatures of the oceans.

The study indicates that the areas around Kanyakumari, Cochin – Calicut, off Visakhapatnam and south of Sri Lanka, have maximum abundance and diversity, and have the potential for developing ecotourism.

Conclusive evidence on the existence of 17 species of marine mammals (6 species of whales, 9 species of dolphins, one species of sea cow and one species of porpoise) within the Indian EEZ including genetic characterization of 10 species have been established.

Source: Press Inormation Bureau
Date: April 07, 2008