Sunday, February 23, 2014

A day of interviews

I spent the day today on the campus interviewing Dr. Choudhary. What is fairly interesting is that he began his career as a Botanist (person who studies plants). And in fact he is a faculty member of the Department of Botany. This is a very big part of this campus and they in fact have a graduate program just for botanical study.

Dr. Sunil Choudhary, Bhaglapur University, India (Photo: JLewis)
Dr. Choudhary was asked to join the efforts to study the Ganges river dolphin after other researchers/managers noted a gap for this type of study near Bhaglapur University, and he was asked to fill that gap. He has since been trained under a Fullbright fellowship where he spent time in the United States working with many well known dolphin science teams. He has now published many papers on the Ganges river dolphin and is considered an expert on the subject. 

I also get the chance to start interviewing and following Subhasis. Subhasis began as a student at this University. He now works alongside Dr. Choudhary as basically the field manager. I quickly learn that he is absolutely instrumental to the success of this group to make any changes to help preserve the dolphin in this area. Subhasis has gotten to know the local fishermen and gained their trust and support. Dolphins and fishermen can be competitors. Subhasis has begun a program where some of the fishermen (called friends of the dolphin) work for him to help collect data on fishing activity in this river within the Sanctuary. They need to determine how many fishing methods are being used, and how frequently so they can have a better understanding about the impacts on the local fish communities.

Subhasis Dey discusses work on the river with one of the local fishermen (Photo: JLewis)

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