East Coast Conservation Team

More than 300 species of marine organisms can be seen on our shores and are very elegant!

All those numbers and photos are possible only through work of many citizen scientists who explored with us and documented them. we have a free citizen science shore walk, where you explore with us and learn with us about these amazing species.

Contact to signup for this free walk and discover beauties of our shore with us!

We are humbled to announce that our pocket guide "Shore life of Andhra Pradesh" is finally printed in collaboration with Kuehne+Nagel and ready to distribute for awareness about marine life in our shores. It is the first of its kind in India and has instructions on how we can help with the conservation of shore life.

The first copies of the pocket guide were opened by Anant Shankar IFS (DFO Visakhapatnam), Dr.K. Ramesh Babu (HOD of Marine Living Resources Department, Andhra University) and Srinivas Kumar (Sagara Vikasa MACS).

We have been collecting data on the shore life of Andhra Pradesh for the last 4 years and thanks to the help of various team members, citizen scientists and attendees of our shore walks, we could record well over 500 species of flora and fauna in Andhra Pradesh shores. We have compiled 108 common species among them and published a pocket field guide with the support of our CSR partner Kuehne+Nagel so anyone can use it as a field guide when they explore the shores and want to know what they see.

Thanks to everyone who helped in getting this booklet into shape, credits are given to everyone involved in the last photo.

We’d like to thank Kuehne+Nagel for supporting our Marine Conservation Program with seed funding and a CSR partnership. With the equipment and support we garner through the partnership, we are able to conduct awareness programs about marine life and its conservation in 10 schools and colleges of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, creating direct awareness for 500 students. Additionally, awareness and knowledge-sharing sessions about the importance of marine megafauna were held with the fishermen communities across five fishing hamlets. These fishing communities have agreed to support any stranding response of these charismatic animals. About 10 shore walks were also organised for the citizens and nearly 200 of them had direct experience of marine life and had expressed willingness to participate in citizen science and conservation in the future – All these milestones in a short span of two months!

Through these efforts and impact, we see our goal of forming a "Marine Conservation Network of Andhra Pradesh" coming alive through the support of Kuehne+Nagel, Sagara Vikasa MACS, AP Forest Department, Marine Mammals Research and Conservation Network of India and Fishing communities of various villages.

Thanks to MMRCNI and Pooja Gupta for allowing us to use your designs and materials. And special thanks to Deepthi Rao for the intertidal illustration we used in the presentation.

Arent you intrigued to know which part of the shore has what type of life? We too! Thats why took help of and rewuested her to make this beautiful illustration of various zones of intertidal area and what type of life can be seen in each!

Another beautiful Otter record from Visakhapatnam, Andhra. A smooth-coated otter was observed chasing egrets at Podugupalem and running in shallow water area by local bird wacher and Photographer Vivek Mathala. The closest previous record of otter is fro Kondakarla Ava fresh water lake that is atleast 70km away.

This record and few other unphotographed sightings from around Visakhapatnam are slowly proving our statement from previous publication on IUCN otter specialist group saying,

"If the otters in Visakhapatnam could also be moving far and interacting with populations in East Godavari and those in Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts needs understanding too. As a next step, focused surveys on the otter's habitat connectivity and threats to otters along the water networks will be crucial to conservation planning purposes."

Pc :

We have an indoor session at Eastern Ghats Biodiversity Centre, PM Palem this sunday followed by a free shore walk at Rushikonda. This is an introductory offer for less cost, do signup to have two experiences for just 200.

Join and learn about marine biodiversity of Andhra from marine biologist . All age groups are welcome. Contact to book a slot

Oceans are vast with thousands and thousands of species of life in them! We have a window or peeping into this marine life just from the shore this weekend!

We have recorded over 350 species of marine life just from the shore of Visakhapatnam. Join our exploration and document life with us! Learn from marine biologists and educators this Sunday.

Our harbour walk is here again! Join to learn about fishing methods, sustainability and freshness of our marine resources in vizag from a marine conservationist perspective and also a fisherman's

Contact to take part in the event

1. Event details
2. Shark explanation
3. Large hammerhead sharks on sale
4. Parrotfish on sale
5. Scallops
6. Freshly caught silk shark from a traditional fisher
7. Tiger sharks

Join us this weekend to explore and learn about marine life around us. Just through these walks, we have recorded almost 400 species of marine organisms from the coast! Join the walk to explore, discover and learn with marine biologists and educators.

All these beautiful creatures are captured in Visakhapatnam!

1. Zoanthids (a type of soft corals)
2. Bristle worm walking with legs that look like bristles
3. Anjuna anemone partially open
4. egg case
5. Ornate Sand Goby
6. event poster
7. Combtooth Blenny

photos by Sri Chakra Pranav

We have a beautiful low tide tomorrow, join us in a shore walk into the intertidal area!

We saw these beautiful animals last week and might come across octopuses again this time. (Octopus, highfin moray eel)

Contact number in 3rd slide.

Photos by

The second dead stranding of sub-adult Bryde's whale happened on 17th November in Bhavanapadu, Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh. Our team lead by Sri Chakra Pranav immediately informed local forest department about the incident and approached the location with forest department staff. This happened 4 months after the previous dead straning of the same species.

Our team observed characters of the baleen whale and identified it as Bryde's whale with guidance from the Marine Mammal Research and Conservation Network of India. Took morphometrics and helped the forest department and local veterinarian on doing a necropsy.

It is concluded that the whale did not die because of propeller injury or ghost net, but could be because of other natural factors. As the whale stranded 6 days after death, the body showed bloating and opening at the a**s region, could be possibly scavenged on by sharks on the bottom after death too.

This incident happened in 10 kilometers radius of the previous dead stranding and could possibly indicate a breeding population in the area that needs further research and conservation practices.

Andhra Pradesh has the largest coast line in the east coast with a spread of about 940 kilometres, we have a plethora of marine species.

We have numerous species of marine mammals like dolphins, whales and porpoises. Dolphins are called as Ganuvu (గణువు) by fishers along the coast and whales as Thimigalam (తిమింగలం). Their body parts names aren't standardised in Telugu and that's what we are doing. These sheets show the English and Telugu body parts of dolphins and whales and help create more awareness among fishers and other local stakeholders about these species.

Knowing local names would help us a lot more in recording traditional ecological knowledge.

These cards are made in collaboration with the Marine Mammal Research and Conservation Network of India.

Thanks to for the illustrations.

Our citizen science project "Intertidal biodiversity of Andhra Pradesh" crossed a mark of 300 taxa now! This is an initiative we started to raise awareness about marine life in the shores of Visakhapatnam and Andhra Pradesh and involving citizens to document the myriad of organisms that live on our shores!

This information and data will help us pinpoint places and marine ecosystems in our state and help conserve them in case of future exploitation.

A lot to learn and a lot to explore. Come and explore with us, document with us and observe the beauty of these organisms. Let's make this number up to 500 soon! Join in our project on inaturalist from link in page description

Kudos to the top 5 contributors to the project Srichakra Pranav Chandrashekhar, Deepu Visweswar, Aditya Madhav and Vimal Raj

Thanks to all the contributors and our fellow marine educators from Wilded India

Join our free walks to explore with us and our guided walks to learn from us!

Happy to announce the completion of 3 years of the East Coast Conservation Team (ECCT). We are humbled to have started and continue so many conservation initiatives irrespective of ups and downs in funding and support.

From working on biodiversity walks and awareness programs to starting long-term conservation programs for marine life, we are trying our best to conserve what we can on the coast of Andhra Pradesh and its wetlands. Follow to know more work we have done these 3 years this week!

Thanks to everyone for their continued support! We can always use your help to keep going ahead for the conservation of wildlife and marine life in Andhra Pradesh. Join our team or donate to support the cause of conserving threatened habitats and wildlife in the sea and on the land.

We have obtained 12A, 80G and CSR1 certificates and looking forward to CSR partners too.

We are back with the harbour walk after the fish ban period!

Join and learn about the fisheries around us and more!

On this World Oceans Day, let's learn about the sea and the marine life in general and the ones neighbouring us in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra has a coastline of 940 kilometres, making it the state with the 2nd largest coast.

AP has a myriad of marine ecosystems from Rocky shores to Seagrass ecosystems and much more. Let's learn in this session about various ecosystems in our coastal states and interesting and endangered marine wildlife living here.

Join the talk by Srichakra Pranav , marine biologist and founding trustee of East Coast Conservation Team (ECCT) working on marine research and conservation in Andhra Pradesh.

World Ocean Day | ECCT Talk
Thursday, June 8 · 6:30 – 7:30pm
Time zone: Asia/Kolkata
Google Meet joining info
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/bdj-rzxq-wea

Or watch live stream on YouTube:
https://youtube.com/live/TuQvfxVH5CQ?feature=share

Let's be in the wonder of observing the biodiversity around us, learning about them through documenting them. Vizag is rich in heritage and biodiversity. The city is nestled between mountains and the sea with lakes, wetlands, trees, red sand hills, thriving intertidal ecosystems, protected forest areas and more. We also have backyard gardens, trees by the road, and little patches of wild weeds growing by the corner. The idea is to observe life in all nooks and corners of the city. Let's explore, learn and document!

The above idea of 'Citizen Science' has been instrumental in getting more citizens involved in reconnecting and appreciating the immediate urban biodiversity and helping collect the information to protect and advocate. We can only protect when we know it exists.

this April 28th to May 1st of 2023.

Meet the Team - (Lakshman)

Our most recent intern is Lakshmana, he has been part of the team from an year and helped us with our field work on electric rays in collaboration with Satyabhama Institute, with our shore walks and small mammal documentation projects.

Post Work stress relief for us is his geeky humour and his villainous laugh.

We appreciate his efforts for understanding species around us and acting on conserving them. We wish you a very good luck on future endeavours in the field of wildlife conservation as your journey as our intern ends this month.

Do get in touch with us if you want to be part of our conservation family. More posts will be coming to get our team closer to you all.

Our team member Srichakra Pranav gave a talk on "Otters, wetlands and their importance" on World wetlands day at Kondakarla Ava in an event organized by Vizag Zoo Park Visakhapatnam and AP Forest Department. Wonderful efforts by DFO Anant Shankar sir

More than 150 students participated in the event and learnt about the importance of wetlands and Otters' role in the ecosystem. Local fishermen who helped in documenting the otters were also appreciated in the event. The students took home the knowledge of wetland ecosystems and importance of wildlife in it and pledged to support conservation efforts in their areas.

Posters given by Early Bird and NCF India were used as support materials

Beautiful documentary by Manon and Sanshey. Please have a look

Science for All: A documentary on citizen science Visakhapatnam, also called Vizag, is just one of the places where citizens are actively contributing to scientific research. And this hobby is having real wo...

Seagrass meadows are one of the most productive marine ecosystems, even sometimes comparable to coral reefs. They act as feeding and breeding grounds for many marine animals and in some places inhabit endangered species like green sea turtles, dugongs and sea horses

We recently discovered a new patch of seagrass meadow in Andhra Pradesh with an average area of 200 hectares led by Srichakra Pranav . We are documenting the ecosystem and looking forward to discovering more in the area. Follow and stay updated about our work.

Thanks to Prachi Hatkar for the technical support in documentation

We have Beginner Marine Explorer event tis weekend with limited slots!

Come, see and learn about marine life in vizag from a marine biologist and team of naturalists. Contact and register to be part of it and sight beautiful creatures like sea anemones, urchins and more hidden marine beauties of our city

We are collaborating with from IISC, Bangalore on studying by-catch of elasmobranchs like Sharks and rays on Visakhapatnam coast.

We intend to understand the dynamics of shark and ray bycatch using different crafts and gears in the area and identifying important areas of these species. As 30 percent of elasmobranch species are threatened with extinction, a study like this will be very insightful for a sustainable future.

Our Program Manager Sri Chakra Pranav gave an educational session on Surveying small cats and otters as part of "Workshop on capacity building for biodiversity conservation" conducted by the forest department and Mr Dhammashil Ghanveer IFS, Field Director, Kanger Valley National Park for the forest department staff and local community interns at Kanger Valley National Park

The staff were also educated during field sessions on tracking and monitoring small mammals. The National park is beautiful with the Kanger River flowing through it, making it a very good location for semi aquatic and aquatic animals to thrive in.

Join our marine explorer walk tomorrow!

Contact to book your slots now

Join the first beetle citizen science project in India

There is a talk on introduction to beetles and how to participate in the event. On the 21st at 4pm

Please join through the following link

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83126716421?pwd=WnplQThYTmlIV1VoN3RrMDQ0MnJCZz09

Stay updated for nature walks regarding the same

Celebrating the health and importance of these Pollinators is then designated as the “National Pollinators Week” and observed internationally.

“Green Paw , working towards wildlife conservation and awareness programs and East Coast Conservation Team , working on Marine Biodiversity awareness and citizen science programs joins with “SuP Club” in commemorating this "Pollinators Week"

Conservation of these pollinators and their habitat,the role played by the citizens to combat them is all that's gonna be learnt by us, being a part in this.webinar addressed by Dr.Chitra Shanker(Principal Scientist,ICAR) and Sri Chakra Pranav(Green paw project manager and Founder ECCT).

Join us in understanding the significance of the pollinators and the role played by us to save this beautiful flowering Earth.

Date:26th June,2022(Sunday)
Time:6pm
Venue:Google

Learn about Sea turtles in Indian waters on the World Sea Turtle Day