Berhampur: The three-day annual dolphin census began Tuesday in Odisha’s Chilika, Asia’s biggest brackish water lagoon, officials said.
Over 100 persons, including experts, retired forest officers, wildlife activists and forest staff, were engaged in the exercises, carried out by the Chilika Wildlife Division, with support of the Chilika Development Authority (CDA), they said.
“We have formed 18 teams, with each consisting of five to six persons, to conduct the census across the 1,165-sq-km lake. While eight teams are deployed in Satapada, 10 teams were engaged in the Balugaon range,” said Divisional Forest Officer Amlan Nayak.
As the weather conditions were conducive, almost all teams started their work from 6 am, and it continued till 12 pm, he said
The enumerators have been equipped with drone cameras, GPS units, range finders, binoculars, cameras and depth measurement instruments to record the sightings of the dolphins following the line-transect method, officials said.
They were given training for the exercises at Chandrapur near Barkul and Satapada Monday.
The DFO said boat services for tourists on the lake will remain suspended in the morning hours till Thursday to avoid disturbance during the census exercise.
Spread across Ganjam, Khurda and Puri districts, Chilika, well-known as the country’s biggest waterfowl habitat, is home to two dolphin species.
The 2025 census revealed that there were 174 dolphins in the lake. There were 159 Irrawaddy dolphins and 15 of the Bottlenose species.
Besides Chilika, the dolphin census is also being conducted in parts of the state’s coast, officials said.
In the Berhampur forest division, the 54-km coast has been divided into four sectors for the enumeration of the dolphins. At least three people have engaged in each sector for the exercise.
PTI