Cambodia reports new death of Mekong River dolphin

July 30, 2010
Xinhua

A Mekong river dolphin was found dead in Kratie province in Cambodian's north eastern part, a government official said Friday.

Touch Seang Tana, chairman of Cambodia's Commission for Conversation and Development of the Mekong River Dolphins Eco- tourism Zone, said the river dolphin believed at age of 27 was found dead on Thursday as it was netted in a laying fishing net in the stream.

He said the dolphin, male, was already old and it had swum out of the protected zone looking for foods and accidently spotted in the fishing net.

He said it weighed 156 kilograms with 2.3 meters long.

Touch Seang Tana estimated dolphins numbered at about 150 to 170 today are living in Cambodia's two provinces of Stung Treng and Kratie, while there were only about 120 in 2000.

Last year, International conservation watchdog, known as WWF issued a report saying and warning that pollution in the Mekong River has pushed the local population of Irrawaddy dolphins to the brink of extinction.

The Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin has been listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species since 2004.

Cambodia, "environmentally sustainable" tourism to save Mekong dolphin

09/06/2008
AsiaNews.it
CAMBODIA

Overfishing, war, and pollution have decimated the dolphins, and only a few dozen of them are left. Environmentalists have begun a project aimed at contributing to the development of the villages and to saving the dolphins, but their numbers continue to diminish.

Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Saving the few dozen freshwater dolphins still remaining in the Mekong River, and helping the local population by guaranteeing them a source of livelihood: this is the aim of the "ecotourism" project begun in the border area between Laos and Cambodia by the Cambodia Rural Development Team (CRDT), which has the twofold objective of protecting wildlife and providing an alternative source of income for the inhabitants of the villages.

For centuries, the waters of the Mekong River - which crosses China, Laos, and Cambodia, before reaching the ocean in Vietnam - were the uncontested habitat of thousands of freshwater dolphins. The Sino-Indian War and the increase of industrialization, together with high pollution levels, have decimated the species, only a few dozen of which survive; 71, according to the latest count provided by the World Wildlife Fund.

The village of Sambor, in the north of Cambodia, is one of the places selected by the CRDT as a model of environmentally sustainable development: tourists are given the opportunity to live in contact with the local population, to help the inhabitants protect the natural habitat of the dolphins, and to teach a little English to the children. The most frequently requested activities include well digging, sewer construction, and work in the fields.

The experiment promoted by the activists is intended to save the dolphins from extinction by radically changing the habits of the inhabitants of the village, who for decades have used aggressive fishing methods like explosives and high-capacity nets. Now the freshwater dolphins are seen as a resource to be "exploited" in order to attract foreign capital and tourism; the visitors pay 60 US dollars for three days in contact with nature, and the money is used to support the local population. In a country in which half the population lives on a dollar a day, the inhabitants of the village earn five dollars a day by providing food (two dollars) and lodging (three dollars) for the visitors.

But recent studies have demonstrated that if the benefit for individuals is beyond question, the same cannot be said for the dolphins: in spite of a small increase in their numbers in the initial phase of the project, it is not yet clear whether this is truly effective for preserving the species. Scientists affirm that a new and not yet identified disease is spreading rapidly, killing the offspring. Researchers fear that the new virus - caused by pollution in the water, infested with chemical agents and the runoff from gold mining projects - could soon lead to the total extinction of the dolphins.

Battle to save Cambodian dolphin

Sun Mao has been trying to stop the dolphin decline
[The] dream recedes as each dead dolphin washes up on the banks of the Mekong

Wednesday, 9 July 2008
By Guy Delauney
BBC News, Kratie

Sun Mao leans forward in the boat, shades his eyes with his hand, and squints across the wide expanse of the Mekong River where it twists through the town of Kratie.

He is looking for one of the world's rarest mammals - the Mekong Irrawaddy dolphin.

Older people in this part of northern Cambodia talk of how they used to take the dolphins for granted.

Little effort was needed to see them in their dozens. Now, scientists say, there are less than 100 remaining.

National heritage

With a practised eye, Sun Mao spots a group of five dolphins, collectively known as a pod.

They briefly break the surface as they come up for air - grey-brown, bullet-headed and exhaling with an old man's rasp.

It is an awe-inspiring sight, but nothing new to Sun Mao.

As part of a local organisation, the Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT), he has put years of work into preserving the dwindling population.

For him it is an issue of national heritage.

"This is the last place for these dolphins in the world," he says over the clatter of the boat's outboard engine.

"We have to conserve and keep them alive in this river for our next generation."

CRDT has tried to educate the local human population about what they can do.

A government-enforced ban on the use of gill nets - nets set vertically in the water so that fish swim into them and are entangled in the mesh - has cut down the number of dolphins accidentally caught by fishermen.

Instead, CRDT has helped locals to reduce their reliance on fishing by offering alternatives such as poultry farming.

Villagers on Pdao Island, just outside Kratie, greet Sun Mao as an old friend as he clambers up the muddy riverbank.

Tourist influx

They happily show off their CRDT-sponsored chickens, water-pumps and fish ponds, and declare themselves delighted to be part of the dolphin preservation efforts.

It would be a heart-warming tale, if only the statistics were not so brutally depressing.

A scientific survey taken three years ago estimated the dolphin population at 127. The latest study by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) puts the figure at 71.

It comes as a devastating blow after all the work that local and international organisations have put in.

As well as banning the use of gill nets, the government has established a network of river guards to patrol the dolphin habitats.

While CRDT has been working with the local human population, WWF scientists have been looking into ways of protecting the dolphins.

Everyone was hoping that the dolphin population would at least stabilise, if not flourish.

Payback would come in the form of an influx of tourists to see the pods at play and bring much-needed revenue to the local economy.

Contaminants

That dream recedes as each dead dolphin washes up on the banks of the Mekong.

Most worryingly, most of the recent casualties have been calves. Without the babies, there is no future for the species.

"There are theories that the immune systems of the dolphins have been compromised by stress," says Richard Zanre, dolphin programme manager for WWF.

"The river environment has been encroached upon by new developments. There is also the problem of contaminants in the river."

The answers need to be found quickly. As it stands, WWF still classifies the remaining population as "sustainable".

If the numbers fall much further, however, there will no longer be enough diversity for the dolphins to breed successfully.

That would spell the end for this unique species.