What can be called as an unusual discovery, the group of scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) have actually found a Dugong additionally called sea cow feeding in Andaman waters.
WII Director, Virendra Tiwari claimed,” Recently our Dugong team, Dr Swapnali Gole and Sumit Prajapati got nice footage of Dugong feeding in Andaman. This is one of the rare sighing in the field.”
Researchers from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) lately found an unusual Dugong, or sea cow, feeding in Andaman waters. Dugongs, essential for seagrass ecological communities, are jeopardized as a result of environment loss. WII has actually been leading preservation initiatives under the Dugong Recovery Program & hellip;pic.twitter.com/6BOfhFR8fD
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The Dugong is just one of just 4 extant types of Sirenia sea cow. It is the only vegetarian creature that is specifically depending on the seagrass environment. High angling stress and various other seaside developing tasks led to the destruction of seagrass environments in India and inevitably endangered the Dugong populaces in the area.
Project Scientist – Dr Swapnali Gole from the Wildlife Institute of India claimed, “The sighting of Dugong was a result of efforts we have been putting in creating this citizen science network across the islands, including different sea-faring stakeholders. SCUBA divers are one of our key stakeholders as they had been reporting regular dugong sightings to us from this place where we sighted the dugong and it was only after that we planned to go for a dive. Our work on dugong conservation in the islands is a product of multiple stakeholders pitching in because sighting is so rare.”
It might be kept in mind thatDr J.A. Johnson, the Principal Investigator of the job and his group have actually played an extremely critical duty in the Dugong Recovery Program in India.
The Dugong is safeguarded under Schedule List I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and is additionally provided in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (MENTIONS). Dugongs play a basic environmental duty in the performance of seaside aquatic environments, especially seagrass ecological communities.
Since 2016, the Wildlife Institute of India has actually been associated with the Dugong Recovery Program in India to save this uncommon and evasive types and its environment via an incorporated participatory technique, which is moneyed by the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Advisory Council (CAMPA), MoEFCC, in 3 places along the Indian shore: Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tamil Nadu (Gulf of Mannar & & Palk Bay), and Gujarat (Gulf of Kutch).
As of currently, it is anticipated that about 200 enduring Dugongs are located in Indian waters. Among their circulation array, the Gujarat shore holds an extremely reduced thickness of Dugong, and the existence of dugongs is constantly validated by indirect proof from stranding documents.
Similar initiatives by WII’s CAMPA-Dugong Project in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat is conserving this jeopardized types from the Indian waters.