‘It is necessary to create a better understanding of dolphins among communities’

Researcher Imran Samad’s new short film on the endangered Indian Ocean humpback dolphins of Goa draws attention to these intelligent, highly social animals

Imran Samad’s first close encounter with dolphins occurred in 2020, while he was still doing his master’s at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS). “I was studying the Ganges river dolphins in West Bengal, examining how the dams and barrages on the river impacted these animals,” says the researcher, who is now pursuing his PhD at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and is also an associate researcher at Dakshin Foundation.

His master’s work made him realise how fascinating the world of dolphins is, and how intertwined their existence is with that of human beings in the spaces they share. “One thing led to another, and soon during my PhD, I found myself in Goa, trying to study marine dolphins and what they were doing.”

Boats often get too close to dolphins during dolphin-watching in Goa | Photo Credit: Imran Samad

All those years spent tracking and closely studying dolphins have fed into The Humpbacks of Goa, a recently released short film on the endangered Indian Ocean humpback dolphin, filmed and edited by Imran and Akhilesh Tambe. Produced by the Dakshin Foundation and funded by The Rufford Foundation and the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship, IISc, the film focuses largely on the dolphin-watching industry of Goa.

“Goa is a tourist hotspot where people go to relax. Among the many activities conducted there, a prominent one is dolphin watching,” explains Imran. While there are other parts of the country where you can watch these aquatic mammals, Goa has developed this industry, which has been active for over 20 years, he says.

And yet, the commercialisation of these activities often leads to basic wildlife-watching protocols being breached routinely, to the detriment of these endangered animals. “You can hire a boat, watch dolphins and return. But there are some complicated issues associated with that. And in Goa, we are only beginning to scratch the surface of this problem.”