Dugong death: Postmortem rules out foul play

The postmortem report of the dugong carcass recovered last week in the Gulf of Kutch showed no external injury marks on the mammal and experts are assuming it most likely died a natural death.

The intact carcass of the female adult dugong, which measures 2.9 metres, was recovered near the Mithapur Reef by forest staff last Friday. It is being preserved at the Fisheries Research Institute at Okha.

Meanwhile, Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) Ravidutt Kamboj has sent its tissue samples to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in Dehradun and the Gujarat Ecological Education and Research (GEER) Foundation in Gandhinagar for preservation and possible DNA sequencing.

GEER Foundation director Dr Bharat Pathak said he has forwarded the tissue samples to the Gujarat State Bio-Technology Mission.

Mission Director Akshay Saxena told The Indian Express his organisation has the requisite facilities to "bank" the tissue. He said the mission was in the process of developing a protocol for further analysis of the mammal's DNA.

The mammal, also known as 'sea-cow' due to its herbivorous nature, has never been sighted alive off Gujarat, or for that matter in India's western coast.

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