| 7December/2004
Indus Dolphin Rescue Drive from
15th
KARACHI: A five-day operation for
the rescue of the blind Indus dolphin
(Platanista minor), one of the world's
most threatened species of freshwater
dolphin, will begin on Jan. 15,
sources in the Sindh Wildlife Department,
which will conduct the operation,
told Daily Times on Thursday.
The operation, which
will continue until Jan. 20, will
be in collaboration with the Lahore
Zoo and United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP).
The sources said
that between August and December,
the department spotted 33 dolphins
stranded in the canals of the Sukkur
and Guddu Barrages in Sindh. So
far, nine of them have been rescued.
Seven of the stranded cetaceans
are as young as one or two years,
the sources said.
It is for the first
time that so many stranded dolphins
have been spotted in canals, the
majority of them calves, the sources
added. The sources said shortage
of water and food and the current
repair work on the Sukkur Barrage
were the main reasons for the stranding
of the aquatic mammals, which belong
to the family Delphinidae and are
related to the tooth whales.
The "Blind Indus
Dolphin Rescue," a $50,000
UNDP fund, is helping the Sindh
Wildlife Department to rescue the
endangered species, the sources
said.
Many Indus dolphins
slip into canals from the river
during flood seasons, or at the
time of the opening of barrage gates,
and become stranded. The stranded
animals are put in large tubs to
be transported back to the river,
the sources said. Unlike the large
marine species of the dolphin, the
Indus dolphins are only five-to-six
feet long.
The sources said
conservationists from Pakistan and
abroad have been invited by the
department to oversee the rescue
operation. Among the foreign invitees
is French wildlife-documentary maker
François-Xavier Pelletien,
who has been filming cetaceans for
30 years.
He will accompany
representatives of several non-governmental
organisations and media teams invited
by the Worldwide Fund for Nature
Pakistan (WWF-P) to witness the
operation. The blind dolphin - which
are actually not blind but lack
eye lenses - are found mainly between
the Guddu and Sukkur Barrages. In
1997, this strip of the River Indus
was declared a "Dolphin Reserve."
The habitat of this
increasingly rare creature previously
ranged from Attock down to the Indus
Delta. Regular surveys are conducted
for monitoring the animal's population.
Scientists
are worried by the slow growth of
the Indus dolphin's population,
the reasons for which are not completely
known. Between 1996 and 1999, there
was an increase of only 41 animals,
the sources said - from 458 to 499..
In March-April 2001, experts of
the WWF-P and the Sindh Wildlife
Department carried out a comprehensive
survey of the Indus dolphin from
Jinnah Barrage to Kotri Barrage.
The highest concentration of dolphin
was found between the Guddu and
Sukkur Barrages, where 602 dolphins
have been recorded, the sources
said.
Source: Daily Times
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_7-1-
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