The Mandapam range forest personnel have retrieved endangered sea cucumbers, protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, thrown into the sea by smugglers near Vedalai seashore on Thursday.
A team of forest guards and anti-poaching watchers, led by guards A. Kildass, M. Radha and T. Muniasamy were on routine patrolling when they found a country boat moving in a suspicious manner off Kuravanthoppu near Vedalai and kept a close vigil before seizing the species.
As the guards and watchers walked along the shore to detain the boatmen red handed as and when they landed on the shore, two men onboard the country boat, sensing trouble, threw ten bags of sea cucumbers into the sea and escaped, S. Sathish, Forest Range Officer (Mandapam range), said.
The guards and the watchers walked into the shallow water for some distance, swam and retrieved the bags containing live sea cucumbers, weighing about 70 kg, he said.
As 95 per cent of them were alive, the personnel released them back into the sea after obtaining instructions from Deepak S. Bilgi, Wildlife warden of Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, he said.
As they faced some kind of resistance from the local fishermen, the personnel brought the retrieved sea cucumbers in plastic containers to the Mandapam area using their vehicle and released them into the sea, Mr Sathish said. The range office registered a case and investigating, he added.
