With the onset of the fishing season, the South 24-Parganas Forest Division has started awareness to prevent fishermen of Sunderbans from hunting scheduled marine animals. This is for the first time that the Forest department has initiated such a drive in a serious bid to protect marine creatures.
Every year, particularly during the monsoon season, a huge number of rare aquatic animals like sharks, sea turtles, dolphins, whales, guitarfish, and stingrays get killed due to fishing malpractices. Not only do these marine animals die due to hunting for consumption, but a lot of them get killed even before reaching the fish markets by either getting entangled in fishing nets or getting hit by the propellers of the fishing boats, and so on. These mishappenings take place mostly because of the unawareness of the masses, and sometimes because of the greedy miscreants.
“We have put up awareness boards at all the seven harbour points in our division. We have also arranged regular miking sessions in the nearby localities with the motto to combat the loss and to protect the marine wildlife of Bengal. “There is a provision in the Wildlife Protection Act, that if a trawler is detected with marine animals like shark and stingray species, we can confiscate the same,” Milan Mandal, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), South 24-Parganas said.
A senior official of the Forest department said that last year a fishing trawler was seized by the forest personnel of Bakkhali Range under the South 24-Parganas forest division which eventually led to the rescue of a good number of baby sharks that were kept captive in the trawler.
The fishermen had claimed ignorance of the fact that poaching, smuggling, and trading of these animals are illegal and strictly prohibited in Bengal. “This prompted us to start awareness on the issue to thwart the fishermen from netting these animals,” the official said. There have been instances of sea turtles that have been listed as critically endangered in the IUCN Red List, losing their lives to illegal trading.
The Forest department has suggested that all fishermen must immediately release the protected fish/marine wildlife species to their natural habitat if accidentally caught. They have also been requested to reach out to the nearest forest official if they come across any such species belonging to the list of protected marine animals that have been brought into their auction market for sale.