[ad_1]
PHNOM PENH (Cambodia): The final surviving freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin on a stretch of the Mekong River in northeastern Cambodia has died, apparently after getting tangled in a fishing web, wildlife officers stated Wednesday.
The aquatic mammal was discovered useless on Tuesday on a riverbank in Stung Treng province close to the border with Laos, Cambodia’s Fisheries Conservation Division introduced on its Fb web page.
The Irrawaddy dolphin, often known as the Mekong River dolphin, is assessed as an endangered species by the Worldwide Union for Conservation of Nature.
Different teams of those dolphins are discovered farther downstream in Cambodia and in two different freshwater rivers: Myanmar’s Irrawaddy and Indonesia’s Mahakam on the island of Borneo.
The primary census of Irrawaddy dolphins in Cambodia in 1997 estimated their inhabitants was about 200.
In 2020, the inhabitants was estimated to be 89, however there was optimism at the moment that the quantity had stabilized.
The tail of the dolphin that died Tuesday was seen tangled in a fishing web a few week earlier, the Cambodian state information company AKP reported.
It stated the dolphin was unable to swim correctly after that and died attributable to its harm and lack of ability to catch its typical prey for nourishment.
Along with being entangled in fishing nets, the species can also be threatened by air pollution, in keeping with Cambodia’s Fisheries Administration and different conservationists.
In recent times, dangers have additionally elevated attributable to local weather change and waters made shallow by the development of upstream dams, each of which lower the variety of different aquatic species that the dolphins eat.
[ad_2]
Source link