06-bioresourcesstatu.. - M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation

Pulicat Lake
about 40 to 50 painted strocks even nest on
housetops and breed every season. Few
cormorants, egrets and spoonbills also join them
occasionally. 67 km away from Chennai on the
same NH 5 a 50-meter right is the
Bodilingaapaadu village with dispersed banyan
trees. Around 30 grey herons and some
cormorants' nest and breed here. The feeding
grounds for the water birds in all these four sites
are the Pulicat Lake. During the month of March,
the lake water in this region is totally drained, so
that these birds are forced to terminate their
breeding abruptly and desert these sites. The wild
life division of the Andhra Pradesh forest
Department has been managing these sanctuaries
since 1976 (Sanjeevaraj and Jacobsen, 2000).
• Eco-tourism: Pulicat Lake is 40 km from
Chennai city. Ponneri is the closest town that
can be reached by local train from the central
station in Chennai in a couple of hours. The
lake with its huge water bodies facilitate
swimming, fishing, windsurfing, boating, etc can
attract national and international tourists
every year. During winter a large number of
migratory birds visiting the bird sanctuary
around the Pulicat Lake also invites seasonal
tourists. A number of students also visit the
lake for research and school trips during their
field visits. The site also has ancient temples,
monuments, historically important structures to
invite tourist through out the year. However,
eco-friendly tourism activities and festivals like
"Flamingo festival" are needed at the site.
• Heritage vaiues: Pulicat with its ancient
temples, cemeteries churches and fort is a
heritage sites. Starting from the 10" Century
Chola temple, followed by the temples from
Nayak period to the Old Dutch churches and
cemeteries one can see the pages of history of
Pulicat Lake. The Dutch cemetery is under the
care of Archeological Survey of India gives a
view of colonial Dutch architecture. Stone
pillars, each ot' which is carved a skeleton, is
supposed to depict life and death, flanks the
entrance of cemetery. There is another
cemetery at the back of the church, which is
more ancient though in the state of disrepair.
The Portuguese the first of the colonial powers
to set foot in Pulicat halted on the way from
Malacca and built a church which was
dedicated to Nossa Senlwra Dus Prazeres (Old
Lady of Joys) in 1515 AD and worship still
150
continues here. There is an old lighthouse
nearby island. During the reign of Venkata II
(1586-1614) the Farman declaration right for
trading was given to the Dutch. Queen Eravi
who built Fort Geldria in 1607 and came in 1:0
existence in 1610 A.D is now in shambles.
History records that this fort was destroyed and
rebuilt several times. Today all that remains
are pieces of its walls and a mud moat covered
by thorny bushes. In 1781 the English attacked
and captured Pulicat contributed the valuable
lighthouse (1859) and Buckingham canal, which
helped trade and fishing even during British
period and remained useful until India's
independence (INTACH, 2000).
• Uilter transport: During 17" century the Dutch
ships used to land in bar mouth of Pulicat Lake
for the transport of goods from India to other
places. Buckingham canal was used for
internal transport of goods even till the British
period. The site existed as an international
port until East India Company took over. Major
transport was curtailed as Madras port evolved
as an international port. However, the water
transport is through Katamarans (very small
boat with simple long woods) and boats with
and without motors continue between the
islands and surro'unding villages.
• Research and education: Surveys made in this
lake were concentrated during the early
nineteenth century by Hornall (1908)
Anantharaman (1951) and Chaco (1951, 1952)
Chaco et al (1953) stressed the need for
developing the Pulicat Lake fisheries. The
Government of Tamil Nadu started a research
unit in July 1971 to study the important aspects
of Pulicat Lake and its fisheries. The
Department of Zoology, Madras Christian
College established an estuarine biological
laboratory at Pulicat in 1969. This facilitated
many students to visit the lake frequently to
study and conduct research about polychate
(Sunder Raj and Sanjeevaraj, 1987) and Ph.D
degrees.
The studies conducted at the lake could be
classified into description of species and ecological
studies. The descriptive studies like the biology of
Ambassis gymnocephalus (Lac) (Raman et at,
1975), Gerres oyena, G.filamentosus and
G.limbus (Prababhakar Rao, 1970) and copepod
parasitism (Kaliyamurthy and Ganapathy, 1978)
was studied and the age and growth of commercial