Two dolphin carcasses found in three days

The blind Indus dolphins may have died after getting tangled in fishing nets

KARACHI: Two blind Indus dolphins have been found dead during the last three days, one in Sukkur and the other in Dadu. The dolphins probably died after being entangled in fishing nets.

A carcass of a blind Indus dolphin was found floating in the water near Begari Bund, situated at zero point Sukkur, on Thursday. According to the local residents, the dolphin was a female and weighed around 50 kilogrammes.



Similarly, another dolphin was found dead in the Dadu canal near Panj Mori in Dadu on Saturday. It was a male, measuring three-and-a-half feet and weighed around 20kg. The deputy conservator at the Sindh wildlife department, Sukkur, Taj Mohammad Shaikh, said that soon after receiving information about the dead dolphin in Sukkur, his men rushed to the scene but found nothing. He said that the carcass might have been thrown back into the water by the villagers. A wildlife department team visited the area and asked the people about the dead dolphin but found no clues about its whereabouts, he added. Talking about the dead dolphin found in the Dadu canal, he said, Dadu is under the control of the wildlife department, Hyderabad but he has asked his men to look into the matter.





Shaikh said that in January, the water-level in the Indus River will reduce considerably due to the annual closure of the Sukkur Barrage's canals, due to which it has become very important to take measures to save the rare blind dolphins. "Though we educate people from time to time in this regard, people still take little care of this rare species," he explained.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2016.