Kendrapada: A daylong dolphin census started at Gahiramatha marine sanctuary in Kendrapada district on Saturday. The cenus was first conducted in 2015. It was cancelled in 2016 and 2017 owing to inclement weather.While forest officials counted 307 dolphins in 2018, they had sighted 270 dolphins in 2015. “On January 19 last year, we sighted 45 Irrawaddy dolphins, 92 bottlenose dolphins, 108 sousa chinensis and 62 sousa plumbera dolphins,” Arabinda Mishra, the range officer of Gahiramatha, said. “We engaged 10 teams to count the dolphins. The census report will depend heavily on sighting forms. We engaged forest guards, locals, environmentalists and others during the dolphin census in the waterbodies of the sanctuary and its nearby areas,” Mishra added.The enumerators will use GPS to map the exact location of the dolphins during the census. Gahiramatha was declared a marine sanctuary in 1997 by the state government to protect the endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles as Gahiramatha beach is the world’s largest rookery of sea turtles. tnn

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