Dolphin carcass on Odisha’s Brahmagiri coast proves Census wrong

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Brahmagiri, Feb 26:

Barely days after the forest department concluded that there were no dolphins in the 150 km stretch from the Devi river mouth in Astaranga to the new Chilka mouth on the Odisha coast, the carcass of an eight feet long bottlenose dolphin was found lying at Bali Harchandi beach near Brahmagiri on Wednesday.

It may be noted that, dolphin census was held in Puri Sea for the first time this year.  Three teams of forest department undertook the census from the mouth of Debi till Chandrabhaga, Chandrabhaga till Bali Harchandi and Nua Munhana till Bali Harchandi where they were unable to find even a single dolphin.

The area where the carcass was found comes under Satapada-Brahmagiri range of forest department.

While the dolphin carcass proves the census wrong, it also points a finger at the counting method adopted and precautions taken by the forest department to conserve the rare species.