Mridula Srinivasan is a marine biologist, presently, she is chief of Protected Species Science Branch at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, USA. At NOAA, she advocates for and provides scientific advice on issues related to protected species such as dolphins, whales, corals, sea turtles and sea birds. In this interview, she speaks of the importance of the scientific approach in conserving marine mammals such as dolphins and how it may be implemented in India.
Since your PhD in 2009, you have studied marine mammals in detail. What are the most significant aspects of your study?
I am interested in predator-prey interaction… and how climate variability affects dolphin distribution and demographics.
Also, my colleague in the US is leading the effort to develop suction-cup non-invasive tags to track dolphins. We have done a few trials in New Zealand on dusky dolphins. It’s very promising but there is a long way to go. The state of the science is that we are unable to non-invasively track dolphins.
We do agree that preservation of marine mammals is important, but at which point does the science come in and how?
Ultimately animal conservation is about managing people; as for the animals, you cannot really manage them, only their habitats. There are various tradeoffs. So, conservation is a challenge. But to get to that point where you start talking about conservation, you still need to do the science. You need to know where your animals are, how many of them and what impacts them, isolate the most critical threats against the smaller ones. The science is in trying to understand the animal’s environment, behaviour, biology. If you don’t know that, it’s very difficult to propose solutions. So you need to know the biology of how these animals behave. Once you know the baseline, how they react to impacts, then you can propose mitigative solutions.
You have specialised in behavioural ecology and studied the dusky dolphin and its preservation. What has been the takeaway, in terms of conserving marine life?
Conservation is really about economics. If there is some development that needs to happen, conservation is the first thing that’s compromised. This is true all over the world. But in the US, at least there is still the science-based conservation. You have to enforce the rules and regulations, but you have to be practical about them.
In India and other countries where you’re trying to develop things, make sure standard of living is uplifted, conservation takes a back seat.
When you seek to preserve a species, or a habitat, or solve a problem – are you getting all the information you need to do this? I think that’s lacking in India at the moment.
Are you working with organisations in India on conservation efforts? You speak of the importance of handling stranding animals, would you explain this?
We are trying [to work in India]. We do work with some of the organisations at ministry level.
We are seeing if we can help support a national structure for stranding response. It is important having some best practices, because you want everyone following consistent guidelines. It goes back to this point: When you see an animal on the beach – dead or alive – and you collect some data and push it back, you are just taking care of the immediate problem. What you are not addressing is why that animal is on the beach in the first place… This has an impact – it is an indicator of ocean health. Oftentimes, you may not know what the cause of death is, but you get some clues, and you want to collect as much data from the animal as possible… Data is just the step to asking more questions. It is important to put together a picture about the animal and then talk about conservation.
If you try to protect something blindly, then you are not helping the animal, the habitat or the ecosystem. You have to make sure the right people are on the table, getting the data, processing and publishing the data.
