29 teams start Chilika Monitoring, dolphin census

Bhubaneswar, Jan 17: As many as 29 teams, including officials of Chilika Development Authority (CDA) and Forest department began the annual monitoring of Chilika lake on Thursday morning.

Students of Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT), personnel of WWF, experts, and wildlife activists are participating in the programme during which the dolphins will also be enumerated.

As many as 80 enumerators have been grouped into 11 survey teams for smooth headcount of the sea mammal.

The final status of the animal count would be published after the experts prepare the final statistics.

Sources said the census is carried out using standard citing method as per which enumerators count the dolphins while they rise above the water level for breathing. The enumerators mark the dolphins’ time and appearance with the help of a pre-loaded GPS.

This apart the counting is also done on the basis of line-transect method.

Over 450 dolphins were sighted in the Odisha coast, including 162 in the Chilika lake last year. The counting indicated that population of dolphins rose by 39 in the lake considered to be one of the biggest habitats for the sea mammal.

The wildlife organisation of Forest Department conducts the annual survey of dolphin population in entire Chilika lake as well as 480-km long Odisha coast every year in the month of January or February.

These teams will survey across the length and breadth of the lagoon from 6.00 A.M. to 12.00 noon, with an aim to find out the number, range and distribution of Irrawaddy dolphins, new areas of bird congregation, sponges that are appearing again after 1985 in parts of Chilika, extent of sea grass and reconstruction of evicted gharries, if any etc.

The annual bird census was highly encouraging with more than a million birds being sighted for the first time after 2004.

The new areas of bird congregation will be mapped out.  All the fishing and tourist boats have been requested not to ply from morning to 12.00 noon for the proper monitoring of the lake.

The tourists have been advised not to visit the lake in the morning hours because of the annual monitoring and stoppings of the boat for the same.