NP - Save the (gangetic) dolphin!

[Guest guest]

*Save the dolphin!

*

Gaia Vince

 

The mist merges with the murky river that slaps against the sides of our

boat. At first, the brown hump that appears and disappears a boat's length

ahead is not immediately identifiable. But as the mist burns off in the weak

January sun, we witness the clear arch and leap of not one, but two, rare

Gangetic dolphins. It's a mesmerizing sight and a privilege: There are just

28 dolphins left in Nepal, according to a survey carried out last year, and

only four are here in the Karnali River, a tributary of the Ganges.

 

" There used to be hundreds of them, " says Tej Kumar Shrestha, professor of

zoology at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, who led the survey and has

studied the dolphin extensively over the past 15 years. " Every time I carry

out the river survey, I find there are fewer and fewer. In five years' time,

I expect the dolphin will be extinct in Nepal. "

 

The Gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica) is predominantly found in India

and Bangladesh, where there are estimated to be around 3,000 in the Ganges

and Brahmaputra rivers. Its numbers have crashed by 50 percent over the past

decade, and the aquatic mammal is rated as endangered on the IUCN Red List.

A subspecies of the dolphin, Platanista gangetica minor, is found in the

Indus River in Pakistan, where the creature has been separated from its

brethren in India by dams and dried-up rivers for so long -- hundreds of

years -- that physical differences have emerged.

 

Every June, during the monsoon rains, migratory dolphins of breeding age

(three to 25 years old) journey to the cooler, fast-flowing oxygenated

waters of Nepal. Here they breed and hunt in the rejuvenated streams and

oxbow lakes before returning south in September. " If they can't migrate

over, they can't breed -- it's as simple as that, " Shrestha says.

 

Climate change is making the problem worse. The monsoon has been arriving as

much as weeks later in recent years, and in more concentrated bursts. The

floods are higher -- in 2007 as many as 45 dolphins migrated across after

the waters completely washed away one major barrage. But the rains are also

briefer, draining the streams and pools too soon for the dolphins to return,

Shrestha says.

 

As with other endangered animals, it is illegal to kill a dolphin -- the

penalty is 70,000 rupees ($900) or 10 years' imprisonment, but it has never

been enacted. Shrestha says the police are bribed. " And anyway, there's no

room in the prisons, " he laughs, pointing to the overflow of political

prisoners.

 

Those living near Bardia National Park are hoping that the new peace,

brought by last year's election of a Maoist government, will allow the

country and its animals to recover. As my boat pulls in to the jetty, I

realise that the susus I was lucky enough to see may turn out to be the last

of Nepal's resident dolphins.

 

(Seed Magazine)

Posted on: 2009-01-31 20:03:02 (Server Time)

*http://ekantipur.com/kolnews.php? & nid=178159*

Lucia de Vries

Freelance Journalist

Bagdol, Patan, Nepal

Wijk 4-47, 8321 GE Urk, Holland