Naturalists record nearly a hundred dolphins in the past three days

Over the past few days, beachgoers along the Chennai coastline have been treated with a rare show—pod of Indo pacific hump-backed dolphins skipping in the inshore waters.

Wildlife filmmaker Saravanakumar said: “We were filming a story on crabs near the broken bridge in Besant Nagar for an education film series on Chennai’s Urban Wildlife. The weather was cloudy and it was drizzling on and off. Around 8 a.m. we saw a few dolphins surface in the distance. Very soon we saw a large pod of nearly 20-30 dolphins.”

The dolphins were swimming very close to each other. After about five minutes they spread out and the team saw the dolphins breaking the surface very often and a few of them also spun out of the water.

“Some fishes were seen jumping out of the water and we thought the dolphins were hunting. Sometimes dolphins school the fish to shallow waters and surround them. This makes it easier to catch the fish,” Mr. Saravanakumar observed.

Supraja Dharini of TREE Foundation said these dolphins were a common species along the Tamil Nadu coast and could be seen in small pods.

They could be sighted in the shallow waters, when the sea was relatively calm.

They also entered estuaries, lagoons and mangrove swamps occasionally, she said.

Volunteers of Sea Turtle Protection Force, an arm of the foundation, also sighted a group of dolphins near Mudaliyar Kuppam, particularly on the southern sector.

The volunteers recorded 25 dolphins on Thursday, 50 on Friday and 20 on Saturday. These gentle giants of the seas were now facing threat in the form of gil nets and trawl nets, she said.

International Union for Conservation of Natural Flora and Fauna classified this species of dolphin under ‘data deficient’ and the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Flora and Fauna had listed this species in Appendix I, Dr. Dharini added.

Meanwhile, morning walkers in Tiruvanmiyur beach say they have watched a small group of dolphins on Friday. “It is delightful to watch them swim so close to the shore,” said a resident.