Rare Whale-Shark Dragged Ashore Half-Dead

October 15, 2004

Release from: newindpress.com

CHENNAI - Was it a case of wilful poaching or an accidental trap? Either way, the plight of a whale shark that was dragged ashore in a fishing net and left to die on the Kottivakkam beach on Thursday has left many questions unanswered.

While fishermen claim it was an accident, officials are not convinced. This is the first recorded instance of the whale shark being sighted near the Chennai coast.

According to fishermen, the nearly 4.5 metre-long whale shark (Rhyncodon Tytus, one of the rare endangered sea mammals, protected under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife Act) was caught in a fishing net early on Thursday morning.

It was dragged ashore at 7.30 a.m. and left on the beach, thrashing about wildly and bleeding from injuries inflicted from the net's ropes. The fishermen had wanted to push it back into the water but were deterred by the size.

When Wildlife department officials and scientists from the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute and the Zoological Survey of India reached the spot at around 9 a.m., it was dead. It was a sub-adult male, 4.5 feet long and weighing 1.5 to 2 tonnes.

By that time, a small crowd had gathered and a collection drive was on, Rs 2 per head, to `have a look.' Wildlife officials say there were even attempts to cut up the giant mammal for commercial gain.

Only a severe warning foiled such attempts. Subsequently, a huge pit was dug and the giant animal buried after a herculean effort. An escort was also posted to thwart excavation.

However, what has worried marine biologists and scientists is the sequence of events itself. Till now, whale sharks have never been sighted anywhere on the East coast, leave alone near Chennai. There is practically no data available on their breeding cycle or their migration pattern among the seas.

Never prolific breeders (they are viviparous mammals, gestating the young inside the womb and releasing them three to four at a time), these slow-moving mammals were becoming increasingly rarer, due to over fishing.

"It has been a life-long wish for me to sight a whale shark whenever I went diving. I have never been able to sight them even near the Andamans where they are known to be present. To know that one had been washed ashore on the Chennai coast came as a surprise. This can only mean that they can be found in these waters, which makes our coastal ecological diversity even more splendorous," said Dr K Venkatraman of the Zoological Survey of India who inspected the dead mammal.

Also, Venkatraman surmises the animal was snared when it came to feed on the plankton in the coral reefs near the Chennai coast. The existence of coral reefs near Chennai still continues to be a point of debate.

"Whale sharks have a good commercial value and a full-grown, 12-feet-long fish can fetch several thousand rupees. Unlike whales, they are rarely stranded ashore as they do not have orientation problems. That a whale shark should have been caught near the Chennai coast is truly amazing," said Dr Kasim, principal scientist and scientist-in-charge, CMFRI, who, too, inspected the dead animal.

Wildlife Warden for Greater Chennai, K S V V P Reddy cautions anyone who wants to commercially exploit scheduled wildlife.

"Though the carcass itself was of no use to us, I ordered it to be buried because I wanted to send a clear message that it cannot be exploited. Anyone doing such prohibited fishing will be severely dealt with. We would like to spread more awareness about this," he said.

However, the question of why, if it was such a rare species, the carcass itself could not have been used for scientific study, remains unanswered.