Discuss the threats to cetaceans in Indian waters and evaluate the adequacy of India's legal and programmatic response, including Project Dolphin.

India's waters hold riverine, estuarine and marine cetaceans, from the Ganges river dolphin to the Endangered Arabian Sea humpback whale. Nobody hunts whales commercially in Indian waters, so cetaceans here die mostly by accident. India's response should therefore be judged by how well it deals with nets, ships and habitat loss, not with hunting.

Threats to Cetaceans in Indian Waters

• Bycatch (animals caught by accident in fishing nets) is "the primary threat" to coastal and estuarine dolphins and porpoises. Small-scale gillnets are the main cause [2].
• Ship strikes: fewer than 10% of populations of four large whale species have any protection from collisions with ships [2].
• Habitat degradation and pollution from fishing and coastal pressures [2].
• Knowledge deficit: poor monitoring limits information on 23 cetacean species in the Bay of Bengal region [2].

India's Response: Strengths

• Legal: cetaceans get the highest level of protection under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 [1]. India has notified 130 Marine Protected Areas, and the CRZ Notification, 2019 protects ecologically sensitive coastal habitats [3].
• Programmatic: Project Dolphin (2020) covers marine dolphins, whales and porpoises as well as river dolphins [1]. The Arabian Sea humpback is one of 25 species chosen for focused conservation [1]. Its monitoring is funded under the Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats (IDWH) scheme [3].
• Scientific base: the first range-wide survey estimated 6,327 river dolphins across 28 rivers in eight states [4]. India satellite-tagged a Ganges river dolphin for the first time in Assam in December 2024 [5].
• Global: India has been an IWC member since 1981. At IWC-70 it called for evidence-based conservation that involves local communities [1].

Evaluation: Gaps

• Mismatch between law and threat: the IWC Schedule covers only the "great whales" [6]. The WLPA bans hunting, but bycatch can only be cut through rules on fishing gear and fishing seasons.
• Marine data gap: India's counting and tagging so far are mostly in rivers [4][5]. The sources show no comparable estimate for whales and dolphins at sea.
• Thin, scattered funding: only about ₹2.4 crore a year went to conservation under CSS–Development of Wildlife Habitats in 2022-24 [3]. The tagging work needed separate money from the National CAMPA Authority [5].

On paper, India's framework is strong against deliberate killing. It is only partly adequate against accidental deaths from nets and ships. The way forward:

• seasonal gear closures in cetacean hotspots
• bycatch-reduction devices, designed and used with fishers
• ship-speed rules in whale areas
• a census of whales and dolphins at sea
• cooperation with the other range countries, as India urged at IWC-70 [1]

Together these would make Project Dolphin a real marine programme and advance SDG 14 (Life Below Water).