One of world's rarest dolphins rebounding in Pakistan

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Once, the Indus dolphin swam across the Indus River and all of its tributaries, from the Indus delta near the Arabian Sea to the snowcapped Himalaya. Today, the 200-pound cetacean only occupies 20 percent of its original range.

Beyond dams, water pollution and industrial waste dumped into the Indus pose the gravest long-term threat to the dolphins.

However, a rigorous government conservation program has educated local communities, rescued stranded dolphins, and is steadily increasing their numbers, Khan says. There are now 1,987 Indus dolphins in Pakistan, according to the most recent WWF survey, up from 132 animals in 1972. Another small population of at least seven animals live in India’s Beas River, an Indus tributary.

“If you go downstream from the Guddu [barrage], and you keep sailing, there comes a point where you see dolphins everywhere around you,” Khan says. “It’s overwhelming because they’re everywhere.”

For rescuers like Mirani, saving the Indus River dolphin is a civic responsibility. He remembers the gharial, a crocodile that once lived in the Indus but is now locally extinct..He doesn’t want the dolphin to suffer the same fate.

S: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/06/rare-indus-dolphins-rebounding-pakistan/

[Guest Adarsh]

My cousin’s professor is on the team of scientists who are working towards bringing back these dolphins 

[Goldfish 579]

Yesssss 🐬