‘It is necessary to create a better understanding of dolphins among communities’

Imran Samad’s first close encounter with dolphins occurred in 2020, while he was still doing his master’s at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS). “I was studying the Ganges river dolphins in West Bengal, examining how the dams and barrages on the river impacted these animals,” says the researcher, who is now pursuing his PhD at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and is also an associate researcher at Dakshin Foundation.

His master’s work made him realise how fascinating the world of dolphins is, and how intertwined their existence is with that of human beings in the spaces they share. “One thing led to another, and soon during my PhD, I found myself in Goa, trying to study marine dolphins and what they were doing.”

Boats often get too close to dolphins during dolphin-watching in Goa
| Photo Credit:
Imran Samad

All those years spent tracking and closely studying dolphins have fed into The Humpbacks of Goa, a recently released short film on the endangered Indian Ocean humpback dolphin, filmed and edited by Imran and Akhilesh Tambe. Produced by the Dakshin Foundation and funded by The Rufford Foundation and the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship, IISc, the film focuses largely on the dolphin-watching industry of Goa.

“Goa is a tourist hotspot where people go to relax. Among the many activities conducted there, a prominent one is dolphin watching,” explains Imran. While there are other parts of the country where you can watch these aquatic mammals, Goa has developed this industry, which has been active for over 20 years, he says.

And yet, the commercialisation of these activities often leads to basic wildlife-watching protocols being breached routinely, to the detriment of these endangered animals. “You can hire a boat, watch dolphins and return. But there are some complicated issues associated with that. And in Goa, we are only beginning to scratch the surface of this problem.”

Seaside stories

An Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphin photographed near Mudaliyar Kuppam close to Chennai
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Dolphins belong to the order Cetacea, which also includes whales and porpoises, “basically mammals that have adapted to a lifestyle underwater. While most of them are found in marine systems, there are some that thrive in fresh water as well,” says Imran.

Cetaceans, he adds, are broadly divided into two categories: Mysticetes or baleen whales such as the blue whale, which feed using rows of fringed, fingernail-like keratin plates called baleen to filter plankton from seawater and Odontocetes, “toothed mammals, which comprise everything from small dolphins to killer whales and pilot whales.”

India is home to around 30 species of cetaceans, including this humpback dolphin, but “we sadly don’t know much about them, not even basic parameters like their overall distribution, life span, home ranges, etc. in Indian waters,” he rues.

Of the four recognised species of humpback dolphins in the world, two are found in India —the Indian Ocean humpback dolphin found on the west coast and the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin found on the east coast. “How they look and what they do in the environment is almost identical; they are just found in different spaces. Sister species is what we call them,” says Imran.

Goa is an especially good habitat for these dolphins because of the rivers that flow into the coast, creating a nutrient-rich, diverse ecosystem
| Photo Credit:
Imran Samad

Humpback dolphins, he notes, are obligatory coastal species, concentrated within two to four kilometres from the coast and rarely venturing beyond that. “If you’ve gone anywhere along the Indian mainland and spotted a dolphin, you’ve probably seen a humpback dolphin, either the Indian Ocean or the Indo-Pacific one,” says Imran. Since they live in these narrow belts throughout the subcontinent, they are highly susceptible to the effects of various human activities, including fishing and pollution. “And still these creatures have somehow managed to survive,” he says.

On a fin and a prayer

Did you know that dolphins give birth underwater, holding their breath as they labour? Or that Goa is an especially good habitat for these dolphins because of the rivers that flow into the coast, creating a nutrient-rich, diverse ecosystem? And that, like humans, they exist in fission-fusion groups whose size and composition keep changing?

The Humpbacks of Goa is filled with interesting little titbits of information like these, guaranteed to bring you just a little bit closer to these intelligent, deeply social animals and raise awareness about them. According to Imran, while tourists do go out to watch these “fascinating creatures that you have probably just heard about on documentaries and see footage on Nat Geo,” they often don’t have a proper understanding of these animals even after a dolphin-watching expedition. “You don’t know exactly what they are, what they are doing in Goa or how many live here,” he says.

Given that dolphins currently face so many threats in Goa, a conversation about conserving them can only happen if people better understand these animals, something he hopes the film will help achieve.

Imran Samad
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

One of the biggest challenges for the dolphin-watching industry, as the film depicts, is that tourist boats often chase dolphins to get a better glimpse of them. “In that sense, it is extremely unregulated and also more difficult to manage, compared to say, tiger tourism,” he says.

Not only does this not receive enough attention, but there are also no national-level guidelines or programmes to regulate dolphin tourism, says Imran, who collaborated closely with Puja Mitra of Terra Conscious, who promotes ethical tourism, while shooting this film.

A row of fishing boats converted for tourist rides to see dolphins at Palolem beach in Goa.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

While, in the long term, Imran hopes to have a system where the government, tourism ministry, local communities, fisheries and tourists are on the same platform, trying to achieve the same goals of conserving dolphins and their habitats, he thinks of it as “a very far away dream.” In his opinion, it is first necessary to create a better understanding of dolphins among the communities these animals share their space with, both tourists and locals.

And that is where the film comes in. “Once you have a lot of people concerned about these dolphins getting a sense of why Goa is important for them and what can be done, you can start talking about more detailed things. That is what we hope to do through this film.”