Whale Shark Conservation in India

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According to a recent study, the global population of sharks and rays have crashed by over 70% in the past five decades.

• After Indonesia, India is the second-largest shark fishing nation in the world, according to the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, India.
• Despite the protection, whale shark landings were common on India’s West coast, especially in Gujarat.

Whale Shark

• Scientific Name: Rhincodon typus.
• Characteristics
  • The whale shark’s flattened head sports a blunt snout above its mouth with short barbels protruding from its nostrils.
  • Its back and sides are grey to brown with white spots among pale vertical and horizontal stripes, and its belly is white.
  • Its two dorsal fins are set rearward on its body, which ends in a large dual-lobbed caudal fin (or tail).
• Features
  • They are the largest fish in the sea, reaching lengths of 40 feet or more.
  • They feed on plankton, tiny animals and small fish. The whale shark is a filter feeder. In order to eat, they jut out their formidably sized jaws and passively filter everything in their path. The mechanism is theorized to be a technique called “cross-flow filtration”.
• Habitat
  • Preferring warm waters, whale sharks populate all tropical seas.
  • They are known to migrate every spring to the continental shelf of the central west coast of Australia.
• Major Threats
  • These are usually hauled in as bycatch when fishermen target economically benefiting species.
  • The meat of whale sharks is not very edible, it is the liver that is the most important for commercial trade, while oil from the fish is used for water-proofing boats.
  • The skin is used for leather which is made into boots and bags.
  • The fins are harvested for shark fin soup, a sought-after delicacy in Southeast Asia and China.
• Global Protection

• CITES: Appendix II
• IUCN Red List Status: Endangered

Conservation Efforts in India

• In 2001, whale sharks were included in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of India, 1972, rendering the capture and killing of the fish a cognisable offence.
  • It was the first-ever species to be protected under this Act, after which the Ganges shark (Glyphis gangeticus) and SpearTooth shark (Glyphis glyphis) were added to it.
• The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) launched the Whale Shark Campaign in 2004 to spread awareness on the plight of the species and its protected status among coastal communities in Gujarat.
  • The campaign helped convert the fishermen into protectors of the fish and brought about a change in the perception and attitude of local people.
• In 2008, the WTI launched the Whale Shark Conservation Project.
  • The project attempts to generate baseline data on the whale shark to aid its long-term conservation in India.
  • It is a joint venture of the Gujarat Forest Department, Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) and WTI.
  • Activities
    • Scientific studies through photo-identification, genetic analysis and satellite tagging.
    • Explores the establishment of whale shark tourism in India, to benefit coastal communities which play a critical role in marine wildlife conservation.
• Awareness programmes, workshops have been conducted in villages and street plays are written and enacted to convey the consequences of hunting.
• WTI also roped in leaders from local communities to head the campaigns to be more inclusive in the process.
• WTI is also geo-tagging these fishes to know their whereabouts.
• Exporting shark fins was banned in India in 2015.

Source: TH