Mumbai: Whale shark caught by fishing trawler at Sassoon Dock

Mumbai, August 12

Late on Tuesday night, a fishing trawler in the Arabian Sea accidentally netted a big catch around 40-50 kms off Colaba.

A giant dotted whale shark got entangled in the fishing nets and desperately struggled to set itself free, but failed, said one of the fishermen on board the vessel.

Owing to darkness and inclement weather conditions, the fishing trawler decided to sail back to Mumbai, dragging the creature in the nets behind it, and reached here early on Wednesday.

They left it along with the net near the shores of the 145-year-old Sassoon Docks in Colaba and sailed back into the sea, informed Damodar Tandel, President of Akhil Bharatiya Machhimar Kriti Samiti and prominent fisherfolk leader.

Later, a crane was deployed to lift the massive dotted whale shark that was around 8-metres (over 26 feet) long, and weighed more than two tonnes (two thousand kilograms).

The crane laid it on the docks as curious fisherfolk gathered around to click selfies this morning.

“We were on a routine patrol in the area and saw this enormous fish, which the fishermen revere as ‘Dev-Masa’ lying here,” Colaba Police Station’s constable Swapnil Kumbhar told IANS.

Though Kumbhar was not clear of the next course of action, prominent fisherfolk leader Damodar Tandel said the whale shark was taken away by a trader who will extract oil from it and dispose off the remains.

This is the first instance in recent times that such a massive fish got entangled in a fishing net, though Mumbai and Maharashtra coastline have witnessed incidents of similar sea-giants getting washed ashore in the past, he said. IANS