With yet another dolphin carcass – third this month – being washed ashore on Friday morning, activists are now complaining that in addition to there being no study to ascertain the reason behind the deaths, there is a bigger problem of on-ground lack of communication, to tackle the situation when a carcass is found.
Around 10am, founder of Ocean Conservation Education Awareness Network (Ocean), Pradip Patade, was alerted by fishermen about the carcass of a six-feet Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin close to the Hindu Gymkhana along Marine drive.
"We saw the carcass lying on the sand and we immediately alerted the forest department's Mangrove Cell. Soon, however, it started floating back in to the sea with the tide. By 11.30am, it had travelled opposite to the Taraporewala aquarium and landed on the rocks," he said, adding that it was not clear till then what was to be done. The police and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had been informed but everybody was clueless about how to get the carcass out of the water.
It was only around noon that Patade requested, along with the cops, one of the lifeguards, who then helped to pull out the carcass on to the promenade. "The Mangrove Cell lacks staff, police officials say they have no bigger role to play in incidents such as these and the BMC says that the fire brigade could have fished out the carcass but they were not called," he added.
Patade further said it was high time that the BMC, Mangrove Cell, fire brigade and the police department had a joint meeting to decide a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), so that everyone would know whom to contact after such an incident.
Meanwhile, a JCB finally picked up the carcass around 12.30pm, loaded it on to a truck called by the BMC and sent it to the Bombay Veterinary College for post-mortem. "Since the carcass was decomposed, it seems difficult to find any conclusive reason for its death. But we will wait for the report. We have also suggested that the samples be sent for forensic tests," said a forest official.
Pawan Sharma of Resqink Association for Wildlife and Welfare (RAWW), an NGO working to rescue urban wildlife, expressed his concern about the rising number of dolphin deaths, and said it was strange that the state government was not concerned. "Either these deaths are normal or there is something wrong. There should be some expert committee to study and find out the real reason, since last year, the number of such carcasses being found washed ashore has gone higher," he said.
Earlier this month on March 2, a 10-feet dolphin was found on a Vasai beach. The same evening, there were reports of another carcass being seen floating in the Marine drive area. Prior to that on March 1, a six-feet dolphin carcass was found in Gorai.
