Number of dugong in Gujarat may be more than estimated

There's a good news for wildlife enthusiasts, especially marine, that dugongs, feared to have gone extinct along the Gujarat coast, might be there in decent numbers. It was earlier estimated to be around a dozen or so.

According to a fresh assessment, based on live sightings and other indicators, the number of dugong or sea cows along the Indian coasts could be 250-350, said a senior government official on the sidelines of the 13th Convention on Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CME COP13) at the Mahatma Mandir, here on Wednesday.

Even along the Gujarat coast there numbers could be double the earlier estimate of 10-12. In a 2012 survey, less than 250 dugongs were estimated to exist along the Indian coasts.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) red list of threatened species has placed dugong as 'vulnerable to extinction'.

With the support of Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands governments and the Indian Coast Guard, the National Dugong Recovery Programme was launched by the Union Environment Ministry a few years back, said K Shivakumar, Head of Department of Endangered Species Management, Wildlife Institute of India (WII).

"The programme brought to light some indicators of their number being more than what was estimated earlier," he said.

"We thought the population of this endangered marine mammal had declined in Gujarat. But then we had a live sighting and a lot of foraging sites were discovered along the Gujarat coast, raising the hopes. We think there may be 20-30 dugongs along the Gujarat coast, mainly around the Bet Dwarka island," Sivakumar said.

"In India, dugong is considered a holy as Lord Krishna's cow. It also works like a marine sanitation worker and feeds on sea grass. It's habitat becomes a breeding ground for prawns, fish," Sivakumar said.

The WII is training the forest officials to come out by 2021 with a new estimate of dugong, which is listed in Schedule 1 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and declares its habitats as protected areas.

These areas are the Gulf of Mannar National Park, the Gulf of Kutch National Park and the Mahatma Gandhi National Park in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. - IANS