Thursday, February 6, 2014

Back into the Sundarbans

Manish talks to a gill net fisherman about the size of fish 
he usually captures (Photo: JLewis, TDRF)
Today Manish and I head back to the Sundarbans to try and document the different types of fishing practices regularly found in the waters where the dolphins are found. Even though there were sanctuaries established here in the Sundarbans to protect the Ganges river dolphin, there is no management plan yet in place to start moving towards greater protection. Fishing still occurs within these sanctuaries and can be harmful to the dolphins in two ways. One is that the dolphins can become trapped in gear and drown. This happens most often in what are called gill nets.

The other, potentially more troublesome issue is the relatively new use of very small mesh size nets to capture fry (fry are very young fish or shrimp). The fishermen that use these want to specifically capture shrimp fry but these nets capture all fry, and do a very good job of capturing very large amounts. So much so, that it can decimate fish populations quickly.

The blue colored nets are those with a very small mesh size that are made to capture fish fry. This type of mesh is used to capture the fry in many different ways (e.g above is a sort of seine)  (Photo: JLewis, TDRF)

We are lucky because we get on the river at a perfect point in the tidal cycle to catch a number of different types of fishermen deploying their gear. I film many of them working in the background while Manish explains on camera what the fishery is, how it works and what impacts it has on fish in the area and on the dolphins.

Manish interviews locals near the river in Khulna about the
river dolphin (Photo: JLewis, TDRF)
When we get back to Khulna we decide it would be interesting to head to the river there and ask the local people some questions about the dolphin. Sort of an impromptu data gathering on what people are aware of. It is surprising to learn that in many regions where this species is found, very few local people know there is a river dolphin in their waters. And almost no one is aware that it is endangered.  

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