Environment: Porbandar gets down to saving the Whale Shark

Source: Deccan Chronicle, January 30, 2009, page 11.
Excerpts from the aricle by: Vivek Menon

'Within four years Gujarat's people have saved the whale shark at its shores and conferred on it the title of 'Gujarat Gaurav', making Vhali, another symbol of parochial pride.

Morari Bapu, in particular, was the key to a million hearts when he first likened Vhali to Matsya avatar and said killing the shark ammounted to deicide. This stopped hunting almost instantaneously, but he further strengthened emotive ties of the locals by likening the fish to a daughter who, after marriage, had left her home and migrated to South Africa/ Australia. The daughter, he said, was returning home to give birth. Which father would not provide a safe home to his daugher to give birth, he thundered and all of Gujarat sat up and listened.

The hunters no longer hunted, the government agencies were now in competition to spearhead the protection and children filled my offices with paintings, stories and emotive outpourings.

Within a year of its launch, the campaign successfully converted former whale shark hunters into its protectors, convincing them to voluntarily release accidentally-trapped whale sharks from their fishing nets. Within two nears, the Gujarat government started a scheme to provide relief to fishermen for the loss of their nets, which is almost inevitable in such rescues.

In four year, about 80 whale sharks have been released by the Gujarat's fisher folk. Gujarat was no longer killing hundreds of sharks! The campaign also gave whale shark the name Vhali - the loved one.

Awareness is also being created amongst school children with the help of inflatable whale sharks to teach them about the need to conserve the shark.'