Team Herald
VASCO: World Wide Fund (WWF) India initiated a series of training workshops with fishing communities in Vasco, Karwar, and Mumbai to track the occurrence of whales and dolphins in the waters around India’s west coast. Such a training workshop was held at Vasco jetty with the fishermen collectively on Tuesday.
WWF India stated that collaborating with coastal communities is invaluable to build baseline information on the presence and diversity of cetaceans in India.
Speaking at the workshop, Jose Philip, President of the Goa Boat Owners Association said, “This is a mutually beneficial arrangement because the community now has access to better phones and we can then contribute to documenting whales and dolphins.”
The data collected from the app will be used to map Cetacean hotspots, identify areas of potential or existing bycatch risk and create frameworks for sustainable coexistence. Coralie D’Lima, Senior Programme Coordinator, WWF India added, “Now that 100 across Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka have been trained to use the Cetacean Tracker application, we will focus on ensuring that cetacean data are reported on accurately.
Capitalizing on the interest among fishing communities, WWF India developed the Cetacean Tracker application, to help the fishing community collect verifiable data, in a time-efficient and scientifically sound way.
