Imran Samad’s first close encounter with dolphins occurred in 2020 while he was still completing his master’s degree at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS). “I studied the Ganges river dolphins in West Bengal and looked at how dams and barrages on the river affected these animals,” says the researcher, who is now pursuing a PhD at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and is also a research associate at the Dakshina Foundation.
Thanks to the work of his master, he realized how fascinating the world of dolphins is and how their existence is connected to the existence of human beings in the spaces they share. “One thing led to another and early on during my PhD I found myself in Goa trying to study sea 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 watching and studying dolphins in detail translated into The Humpbacks of Goa, a recently released short film about the endangered humpback whale in the Indian Ocean, shot and edited by Imran and Akhilesh Tambe. Produced by the Dakshin Foundation and funded by The Rufford Foundation and the IISc Ministerial Research Fellowship, the film largely focuses on the dolphin watching industry in Goa.
“Goa is a tourist hotspot where people go to relax. Among the many activities that take place there, dolphin watching is prominent,” explains Imran. While there are other parts of the country where you can track these aquatic mammals, Goa has developed the industry, which has been active for more than 20 years, he says.
And yet the commercialization of these activities often leads to routine violations of basic wildlife monitoring protocols, to the detriment of these endangered animals. “You can hire a boat, go dolphin watching and come back. But there are some complicated issues involved. And in Goa we’re just beginning to scratch the surface of that problem.”
Seaside stories
Indopacific humpback dolphin photographed near mudaliyar kuppam near chennai | Photo credit: Special arrangement
Dolphins belong to the cetacean order, which also includes whales and porpoises, “basically mammals that have adapted to an underwater lifestyle. Most of them are found in marine systems, but some thrive in freshwater,” says Imran.
Cetaceans, he adds, are broadly divided into two categories: Mysticetes, or baleen whales like the blue whale, which feed using rows of fringed, nail-like keratin plates called baleen to filter plankton from seawater, and Odontocetes, “toothed mammals that include everything from small dolphins and pilot whales to killer whales.”
India is home to about 30 species of cetaceans, including this humpback whale, but “unfortunately, we don’t know much about them, not even basic parameters like their overall distribution, lifespan, home ranges, etc. in Indian waters,” he laments.
Of the four recognized species of humpback whales in the world, two are found in India — the Indian Ocean humpback whale found on the west coast and the Indo-Pacific humpback whale found on the east coast. “What they look like and what they do in the environment is almost identical; they’re just in different spaces. We call them sister species,” says Imran.
Goa is a particularly good habitat for these dolphins because of the rivers that flow into the coast, creating a diverse, nutrient-rich ecosystem | Photo credit: Imran Samad
He notes that humpback whales are an obligate coastal species, concentrating within two to four kilometers of shore and rarely venturing beyond that. “If you’ve gone anywhere along the Indian mainland and seen a dolphin, you’ve probably seen a humpback dolphin, either in the Indian Ocean or the Indo-Pacific,” says Imran. Because they live in these narrow bands across the subcontinent, they are highly sensitive to the effects of various human activities, including fishing and pollution. “And yet these creatures somehow managed to survive,” he says.
On a fin and a prayer
Did you know that dolphins give birth underwater and hold their breath while giving birth? Or that Goa is a particularly good habitat for these dolphins because of the rivers that flow into the coast and create a diverse, nutrient-rich ecosystem? And that, like humans, they exist in fission-fusion groups whose size and composition are constantly changing?
Humpbacks of Goa is full of interesting tidbits like these, guaranteed to bring you closer to and more aware of these intelligent, deeply social animals. According to Imran, while tourists come to observe these “fascinating creatures that you’ve probably just heard about in documentaries and seen footage on Nat Geo,” they often don’t understand the animals even after a dolphin-watching expedition. “You don’t know exactly what they are, what they do in Goa or how many live here,” he says.
With dolphins currently facing so many threats in Goa, the conversation about their conservation can only happen if people understand these animals better, which he hopes the film will help achieve.
Imran Samad | Photo credit: Special arrangement
One of the biggest challenges to the dolphin-watching industry, the film describes, is that tourist boats often chase dolphins to get a better look at them. “In that sense, it’s extremely unregulated and also more difficult to manage than, say, tiger tourism,” he says.
Not only is there not enough attention, there are no national-level guidelines or programs to regulate dolphin tourism, says Imran, who worked closely with Puja Mitra of Terra Conscious, which promotes ethical tourism, to make this film.
A row of fishing boats converted for tourist trips 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, the Department of Tourism, local communities, fisheries and tourists are on the same platform working to achieve the same goals of protecting dolphins and their habitats, he sees this as a “very distant dream”. In his opinion, it is first necessary to create a better understanding of dolphins among the communities with which these animals share their space, both tourists and local residents.
And that’s where the movie comes in. “Once many people who care about these dolphins understand why Goa is important to them and what can be done, you can start talking about more detailed things. That’s what we hope to achieve with this film.”
