India’s National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) recently included four new diverse species in its recovery programme for critically endangered species which includes the Arabian Sea humpback whale. Threats to this population are entanglement in fishing gear, ship strikes and seismic explorations.
Historical whaling records and years of research conducted off the coast of Oman revealed that these particular humpback whales are the only non-migratory population of humpback whales in the world, however, they do occasionally migrate towards India’s west coast from Oman and there have been several incidents of standings along Maharashtra’s coastline.
The species recovery programme of the Union Environment Ministry is implemented under Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats — a centrally sponsored umbrella scheme for management and conservation of parks, wildlife habitats and conservation.
The current best estimate of population size for Arabian Sea humpbacks is fewer than 100 individuals – discovered as a genetically distinct humpback population in 2007.
