Indus River: Two dolphins and a turtle found stuck in barrage gates

Three dolphins, two of them dead, were stuck in gates Nos. 27 and 61 of the barrage.

SUKKUR:

The bodies of two blind Indus River dolphins and a turtle were found stuck in Guddu Barrage on Saturday, raising the death toll to 21 since January.

According to sources, the wildlife department received a report that there were three dolphins stuck in gates Nos. 27 and 61 of the barrage. Deputy conservator Ghulam Mohammad Gadani said that when he got there with his team, there were two dead dolphins and a dead turtle stuck. One of the dolphins was a 5.8 foot long male and weighed 40 kilogrammes while the other was a 3.7 foot long female and weighed 20 kilogrammes. The conservator could not say much about the turtle as the body had started to decompose.

“The bodies looked five to seven days old,” he said. “The mammals had most probably died in Punjab and were washed upstream from the Guddu Barrage.” Two members of his team were monitoring the movement of the mammals at Guddu because there were more than 350 blind Indus dolphins in the Chashma and Guddu barrages.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2011.