Acoustic Surveys Detect India’s Finless Porpoises 4 Times More Often
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📰 The quick summary: Acoustic monitoring detects India’s elusive Indo-Pacific finless porpoises four times more often than visual surveys, offering researchers a much more accurate tool to track and protect a species facing serious threats from fishing nets and ocean noise.
📈 One key stat: Acoustic surveys detected finless porpoises four times more often than visual surveys off India’s Sindhudurg coast, revealing just how severely traditional monitoring methods undercount this species.
💬 One key quote: “Dolphins can sometimes tear out of nets, but porpoises cannot,” said marine mammal researcher Dipani Sutaria.
1️⃣ The big picture: India’s Indo-Pacific finless porpoise is one of the country’s smallest and most elusive cetaceans, living in shallow, murky coastal waters where its lack of a dorsal fin and brief surfacing make it nearly impossible to spot. A 2025 study conducted off the Sindhudurg coast found that acoustic monitoring, which picks up the high-frequency echolocation clicks the animals use to navigate, detected porpoises four times more often than traditional visual surveys from boats. This gap matters because accurate population counts are essential for protecting a species under serious pressure from bycatch, boat traffic, and industrial noise pollution. In Goa alone, an estimated 26 porpoises die each year along just 100 kilometers of coastline, often by getting entangled in fishing nets from which they cannot escape. Researchers now argue that acoustic monitoring must become the standard approach for tracking finless porpoises in Indian waters.
2️⃣ Why is this good news: Acoustic monitoring gives scientists a far more complete and accurate picture of finless porpoise populations, which is a critical first step toward effective conservation. With better population data, policymakers and conservationists can design more targeted protections for the shallow coastal zones these animals depend on. The technology already exists and has proven itself in the field, meaning it can be scaled up along India’s coastline relatively quickly. Long-term acoustic datasets can also capture population trends over time, helping researchers detect declines early enough to act before populations collapse. Beyond India, this approach has the potential to improve monitoring of other hard-to-spot cetaceans in turbid coastal waters around the world.
3️⃣ What’s next: Researchers are calling for a shift toward acoustic monitoring as a standard conservation tool to build the long-term population data India currently lacks. Broader deployment of sound-recording devices along the country’s coastline is needed to understand how porpoise populations are faring across different regions. At the same time, addressing the bycatch crisis and reducing underwater noise pollution from commercial shipping remain urgent priorities alongside better monitoring.
Read the full story here: Mongabay – Listening offers a clearer picture of India’s hidden finless porpoises
