Fisherman rescues Indo-Pacific  finless porpoise entangled in gillnet

Karachi: A fisherman trained by the WWF-Pakistan, Mehar Gul, safely rescued a four feet long Indo-Pacific finless porpoise caught in a gillnet while he was fishing for tuna about 17 kilometres south of Gwadar, Balochistan, on Friday.

He said he saw the entangled species struggling for life and immediately asked his crewmen to cease the fishing operation. Having its tail caught in the net, the porpoise could not come to surface to breathe. After struggling for 30 minutes, the crewmen lifted it with the support of net haulers and released it back into the sea. This was the first successful release of an Indo-Pacific porpoise in Pakistan.

Gul was a part of a five-day WWF-Pakistan training on the safe release of megafauna such as whales, dolphins, porpoises, whale sharks, sunfish and mobulid rays.

The Indo-Pacific finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) is found in shallow waters along the coastline, in lagoons such as Miani Hor and Kalmat Khor and also in the estuarine area in the lower reaches of the Indus River. Porpoises are cetaceans like dolphins and whales but can be distinguished based on their smaller snout and spade-shaped teeth.

As the name indicates, porpoise species from Pakistan lacks dorsal fin, whereas all dolphins have a prominent hooked or curved dorsal fin.

According to the WWF-Pakistan, nowadays fishermen do not kill porpoises, but in the past their meat was used as a bait to catch sharks in longline fishing gears. After the longline fisheries decreased in the late 1990s, the practice of killing porpoises also stopped. So, it is ironic that the porpoise population has substantially declined in Pakistan, as well as in other range countries. It is now considered vulnerable according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.

Muhammad Moazzam Khan, technical adviser, Marine Fisheries, WWF-Pakistan, says some 30 years ago, it was not unusual to see porpoises and their pods along the coastline, especially in the bays of Ormara, Pasni and Gwadar, as well as in Keti Bundar, Hajamro and Kharo Chan areas. Now their population in the country is declining because of habitat degradation, pollution and mortality due to entanglement in fishing gears.

Rab Nawaz, senior director for programmes, WWF-Pakistan, lauded the efforts of fishermen who safely released the porpoise, which indicated that they were now well aware of the importance of the threatened species. In 2012, the WWF-Pakistan initiated a programme to train fishermen on safe release of endangered, threatened and protected (ETP) species.

Through this programme, trained fishermen have so far released 60 whale sharks, 45 mobulids, 25 sunfish, six dolphins, five whales, 25 sea snakes, five masked boobies (seabirds) and thousands of marine turtles.

The WWF-Pakistan plans to expand the programme to cover other fisheries such as trawling, coastal gillnetting and seining.

Porpoises are included in the list of protected species under the Sindh and Balochistan fisheries legislations, as well as, Balochistan Wildlife Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management Act, 2014. 

In 2013, the WWF-Pakistan also prepared an action plan for the protection of cetaceans, which was agreed upon by all major stakeholders. The implementation of the plan is needed to ensure that cetaceans including dolphins, porpoises and whales are protected in Pakistan.