232 whale sharks rescued/released in five years off Junagadh coast

In last five years the Junagadh district of Gujarat has witnessed rescue of 232 whale shark fishes.

Whale shark is the largest fish which lives for 100 years normally. Whenever any whale shark traps in net of fisherman off Gujarat coast, the fisherman informs forest department about that. Forest department in response immediately reaches to the place of incident and helps fisherman for release of whale shark from net.The department provides Rs.25000 help to the fisherman for loss of his net,because in the process of releasing the fish, the net faces partial or total damage.

Junagadh’s Forest department has paid Rs.36 lakh so far to fishermen this way.

According to figures available to Deshgujarat from Forest department official Anita Karna, in 2005-06 two whale sharks were released, in 2006 another two were released. While 32 whale sharks were released in 2007, another 102 were released in 2008. In year 2009 52 whale were released, the figure was 42 in year 2010-11.