Indore: Kamla Nehru Prani Sangrahalaya, Indore has been conducting various activities online to celebrate Wildlife Week. The week-long activities will conclude with the closing ceremony on Wednesday.
This year, due to outspread of coronavirus, all the seminars and activities were conducted online as opposed to usual offline competitions. The following two sessions were the highlight of the week:
Similar to humans, the apex predator of ocean
· Shark expert from Hawaii USA Dr Michael Domeier headed a webinar on white sharks. Excerpts from his session are as follows:
· Sharks are similar to humans, they have moods just like us - happy sad, angry, curious, etc. Sharks can survive in waters of varied temperatures from cold to temperate.
· Shark numbers have increased gradually and are in good numbers now, due to their adaptive nature and flexible lifestyle.
· Sharks are the apex predator in the oceans and have no natural enemies, they may feed on seals or dolphins or even scavenge on whale carcasses.
· Baby sharks are born about 20 kilograms in weight and their survival rate is around 99%.
· The adult shark lives a solitary life and migrate following the pattern of whales.
Mega Mammals
Researcher and Wildlife Photographer Ganesh Raghunathan, shared several less-known facts about elephants in the webinar. Following are excerpts from the same:
· Elephants being the biggest animals on land, are extremely important for forest ecosystem. Large mammals live in groups and the babies are fiercely defended by the mothers.
· In India, Asiatic elephants are found which are comparatively smaller in size than the African elephants.
· Human-elephant conflicts are growing a result of encroachment of the forest areas by the villagers and the resultant clashes ending up mostly in the death of these animals.
· Elephants are primarily populated in the northeast and south Indian regions.
