Two endangered whale sharks rescued by fishermen

Karachi
Two endangered whale sharks were successfully released by fishermen on separate locations, reported the World Wide Fund – Pakistan (WWF) on Friday.
The fishermen had been trained by the WWF - Pakistan to release all non-target species, specially megafauna, if they ever accidently got entangled in their fishing nets.
Gul Hussain Nakhuda (skipper) of a Karachi based tuna gillnetter released an 18-feet long whale shark 45km off the coast of Ormara, where the depth of the sea was about 1,030 metres.
The fisherman had found the whale entangled in his gillnet and was able to free the gentle giant after a 25 minutes struggle. He, however, had to cut off 275 metres of his net to free the whale shark. The shark was Hasan’s third save since the training.
Another Karachi based gillnet boat, captained by Nakhuda Hasnat Khan, around the same time had found a 16-feet long whale shark stuck in his gillnet. Following a dedicated 20-minute effort, Hasnat was able to release the shark at about 155km off the Churna Island where the water was 155 metres deep.
Hasnat, who hailed from Peshawar also had to cut off a part of the gill net but was happy to have released the mammal since it was a rare species and was of no use to the fishermen.
The WWF-Pakistan had since 2013, managed to train around 50 fishermen following which a total of 14 whale sharks had been released. The species included two Mobula Rays, two Sunfishes, one Longman’s Beaked Whale, two Bottlenose Dolphin and thousands of marine turtles.
WWF – Pakistan senior director biodiversity, Rab Nawaz, appreciated the efforts of the fishermen in releasing the two whale sharks.
He added that whale sharks were not legally protected in Pakistan but the fishing community considered them to be an important marine species which should not be killed (to extract liver oil).
A WWF-Pakistan official informed the organisation was working in close collaboration with the fisheries and wildlife departments of Sindh and Balochistan to include the whale shark in the list of protected species.
He also called on the government to devise a policy encouraging less use of gillnet fishing in Pakistan since chances of protected by-catch, specially cetaceans and turtles, getting entangled in it were high.
Stating Sri Lanka as an example, the officials informed that it had converted a large number of gillnet boats into longline fishing, considered to be a comparatively safer fishing protocol.
Muhammad Moazzam Khan, technical advisor marine fisheries WWF-Pakistan, pointed out, “Gillnet fishing in Pakistan was known for high mortality of protected, endangered and threatened species such as whale sharks, turtles and dolphins.”
He further pointed out that before 1970’s whale sharks used to be harpooned in Pakistan, however, the practice had now been stopped.
“Whale sharks were neither consumed in Pakistan nor was their meat exported; however, fishermen used to extract oil from its liver for smearing the hull of the fishing boats to keep it water-tight.”