Ahmedabad, Feb 18: Efforts of a religious leader, who joined hands with wild life activists, has helped in the conservation of whale shark - hunted in large numbers on the Saurashtra coast of the state. Whale shark used to be extensively hunted in 1980s and 90s for trade and the species was in danger of becoming locally extinct, Dhiresh Joshi of wildlife trust of India (WTI), who along with the state forest department launched a campaign to save it, said. In 2000, when the marine mammal was included in Schedule 1 of Wild Life (protection) act by the Union Forest Ministry, hunting went down but it continued in some pockets, wildlife activists said. Some of them, along with the state government, decided to rope in religious leader Morari Bapu to convince fishermen to stop hunting it.
No comments:
Post a Comment