Puri (Orissa) - February 16th, 2007

I got a tour day to visit Chilica Lake, Asia's largest blackish lagoon. In the moonsoon season becomes almost twice as large. This shallow lake is separated from the Bay of Bengal by a 60 km. long sand bar.
There are a lot of migratory birds here from as far as Siberia and Iran. Unfortunately, the private fishermen do a lot of commercial prawn farming, and the nets they use threat this important wetland, even big turtles. I saw three death turtles on the beach.
Part of the problem is they run a lot of boat tours on weekends to see the dolphins. Few years ago a cyclon brought into the lake dolphins that were swimming nearby. At first, the fishermen were killing the dolphins because they didn't know they are mammals and do not attach people. Then, the government found out and decided to make a good business out of it.
I saw a few dolphins, actually only their nose and tail, since this lake is pretty shallow. The unfortunate dolphins do not have enough depth to flip on the water as they would naturally like to do when they play and exercise or show off to nearbyers.