true

ISRA FACTSHEETS

ASIA REGION

ISRA FACTSHEETS

ASIA REGION

Lighthouse Beach ISRA

89/122

Lighthouse Beach ISRA

Lighthouse Beach

Summary

Lighthouse Beach is a shallow coastal area at the southern tip of Little Andaman Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. The area has a gentle slope, providing shallow, primarily sandy, habitat extending over 300 m (in some areas) from shore which is sheltered by a fringing reef. The area also contains dense seagrass meadows. Lighthouse Beach overlaps with Little Andaman Key Biodiversity Area. Within the area there are: threatened species and reproductive areas (Giant Guitarfish Glaucostegus typus).

Lighthouse Beach

Lighthouse Beach

DESCRIPTION OF HABITAT

Lighthouse Beach is situated at the southern tip of Little Andaman Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. This archipelago is located ~1,360 km east of mainland India, situated between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea (Nazareth et al. 2022). It is part of an undersea mountain range that extends from the west coast of Myanmar to the northwest coast of Indonesia. The Andaman Islands comprise over 325 islands, of which 21 are inhabited (Census of India 2011).

These oceanic islands have a limited continental shelf covering ~16,000 km2, and almost no continental slope. They are also part of the Indo-Myanmar and Sundaland biodiversity hotspot (Roberts et al. 2002). They are not only diverse in the biodiversity they support, but also the types of ecosystems and habitats that exist along the coast, with mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass meadows, algal beds, and habitats like creeks, inlets, bays, estuaries, and lagoons. This diversity has led to the islands being highly productive (Ramachandran 2000).

Lighthouse Beach is situated at the southern tip of Little Andaman Island and consists of a ~6 km long, primarily sandy, beach with a gentle slope, providing a large shallow area which extends out by 300 m at some points, and is sheltered within a fringing reef. The area also contains dense seagrass meadows.

The island receives seven months of rain a year due to the southwest and northeast monsoons which together last from May to December (Patankar 2019).

Lighthouse Beach overlaps with Little Andaman Key Biodiversity Area (KBA 2024).

This Important Shark and Ray Area is benthic and is delineated from inshore and surface waters (0 m) to 5 m based on the depth range of Qualifying Species in the area.

CRITERION A

VULNERABILITY

One Qualifying Species within the area is considered threatened with extinction according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The Giant Guitarfish is assessed as Critically Endangered (Kyne et al. 2019).

CRITERION C

SUB-CRITERION C1 – REPRODUCTIVE AREAS

Lighthouse Beach is an important reproductive area for one ray species.

Local ecological knowledge (LEK) collected between September 2019 and June 2020 from coastal stakeholders (including fishers, coastal residents, dive operators, forest department staff) of the Andaman Islands revealed that early life-stage Giant Guitarfish are utilising shallow coastal waters in this area (Nazareth et al. 2022). Five respondents had observed early life-stage Giant Guitarfish swimming in shallow water along the coast at Lighthouse Beach. They report sightings dating back to 2010 with two of the respondents reporting to have observed Giant Guitarfish daily.

In addition to the LEK, multiple visits to the area between 2016 and 2019 recorded early life-stage Giant Guitarfish each time swimming in shallow waters. During a pilot survey, 45 individuals were recorded along a 4,000 m stretch of coastline (E Nazareth et al. unpubl. data 2016–2019). The individuals observed were estimated to be 30–45 cm total length (TL) and were classified as neonates and young-of-the-year based on size-at-birth reported in the literature (35–40 cm TL; Last et al. 2016; Freeman 2019; Gaskins et al. 2020). Lighthouse Beach provides shallow inshore habitat consistent with habitat reported for early life-stage Giant Guitarfish elsewhere (e.g., Freeman 2019; Gaskins et al. 2020).

Lighthouse Beach

SUBMIT A REQUEST

ISRA SPATIAL LAYER REQUEST

To make a request to download the ISRA Layer in either a GIS compatible Shapefile (.shp) or Google Earth compatible Keyhole Markup Language Zipped file (.kmz) please complete the following form. We will review your request and send the download details to you. We will endeavor to send you the requested files as soon as we can. However, please note that this is not an automated process, and before requests are responded to, they undergo internal review and authorization. As such, requests normally take 5–10 working days to process.

Should you have questions about the data or process, please do not hesitate to contact us.

    * indicates required

    Industry or sector (*)

    Under the terms and conditions of our User License Agreement , full and appropriate acknowledgement is required in any materials and publications derived from the data (and copies should be sent to the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group through the contact form). For any publications making substantial use of the data, the ISRA welcomes the opportunity for co-authorship, collaboration, and to comment prior to publication.


    Furthermore, we need to know whether you are a commercial or non-commercial user. Non-commercial includes scientific research, education or conservation. Commercial is defined as follows: any use by, on behalf of, or to inform or assist the activities of a commercial entity (that operates ‘for profit’) or use by a non-profit for the purposes of revenue generation

    Type of use(*):

    Please specify which layer (ex. all layers, layers within a specific Region, layers within a Jurisdiction or a single ISRA): Purpose (*):

    Please provide a description of how you intend to use the ISRA GIS Dataset. The more details you provide, the faster we can respond to your request. We may require further clarification prior to providing access. (min. 100 characters – max 1,000 characters)



    File format request (*)

    By providing your personal data, you consent to its processing as described below. The IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group will use the information you provide on this form to send the documents you requested. You can change your mind at any time by writing to the ISRA Data Coordinator www.sharkrayareas.org/contact. All personal details provided will be treated with respect. For any information you can visit our Privacy Policy.
    Please read the User License Agreement and ISRA Layer Metadata Description

    This form uses Google reCaptcha to reduce spam. Privacy - Terms