Our Resurgent River Dolphin - Conservation News
"Numbers of the endangered Indus River Dolphin have steadily increased thanks to decades of collective effort"
Pakistan's Indus Blind Dolphin, or "bhulan", has seen a rise in population numbers since the species became threatened due to South Asian irrigation system built in the 1700s by the British. Once hunted for the oil in its fat, the population increase has been steady since the hunting ban in the 1970s .
The Sindh Wildlife Department and the WWF educated the locals/stakeholders about the importance of the species in order to get them to stop hunting the dolphin and now monitor the dolphins (and any poachers) in the area and run rescue operations saving stranded, trapped, and injured dolphins.
The current main threat to the dolphins is pollution, such as industrial waste and sewage, and "habitat fragmentation and degradation due to extraction of water in the dry season", as well as "extensive fishing" of the area. The dolphins are known to have heart attacks when they become tangled in fishing nets.
Population in 1972 : 132
Population in 1975 : 182
Population in 2019 : 1,419 between the Guddu and Kotri barrages
The dolphin count is broken down by barrages (small dams) in the river.
Read the article from the Express Tribune :
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2307245/our-resurgent-river-dolphin
Learn more about the Indus River Dolphin from NOAA :
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/indus-river-dolphin
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